


The Worst (and Best) Things in Life Are Free*

by duckiesinaline



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: A Little Bit of Death, Americanisms vs Britishisms, Conspiracy, Double-cross, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends, Gen, I like how there's a Quidditch injury tag, Original Character(s), Percival Graves in the hot pot, Permanent Injury, Plot, Slow Build, Spies, Suits, all of MACUSA in the hot pot, and maybe some liquor, just all the beautiful suits, mafia, office politics, political politics, potterversus ignoramus, some corruption, some silly wand-waving attempt at political matters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckiesinaline/pseuds/duckiesinaline
Summary: Gellert Grindelwald had been captured. The obscuras found and destroyed. The threat of a Second Salem Witch Trials becoming a New York Witch Trials averted for the moment.But there were no tidy "the ends" outside of the Enchanted Forest, and there were still plenty of loose ends to hang oneself with ... such as a security department that was no longer secure. Such as five days of a major metropolitan city's worth of amnesia to smooth over. Such as two months' worth of personal recompense to make (never mind that it shouldn't be HIS recompense to make). Oh yes, and the British (wizardry) were invading via a righteous War Hero on the war path over the treatment of his precious baby brother.And those were just the beginnings of Graves' problems.





	1. The End of the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to Winzler, my muse, enabler, Potter-reference, beta, and general all-around everything-awesome! <3

He had barely been out of bed for fifteen minutes and he could already feel the ache building in the hinge of his jaw.

Percival Graves paused in the short corridor outside his bedroom and took a deep breath, easing the clench of his teeth. Another breath, to clear the tightness in his chest and belly. Then one more to release the stiff set of his shoulders and neck.

Tension was a dueller’s weakness, one that he had thought he had methodically trained out of himself long ago. It made you slow, made your intentions obvious and your movements clumsy. It could cost you that slim second’s sliver of time in which to complete a counter or an attack.

But only three steps into his bedroom, he could already feel it creeping over him again; at just the sight of the still un-made bed, when he had forgotten his habit of triggering tidy-up charms on the way to the shower. At the unaccustomed scrape of the rug beneath his bare feet, since his house slippers had gone inexplicably missing.

The last fifteen minutes had been filled to overflowing with such small, needling inconsistencies; routines that were not quite second-nature anymore, details he had not paid conscious attention to for years, until he was literally tripping over them.

The uneven hanks of hair he had been left with had been trimmed and neatened, but was too short now to require more than a finger’s worth of pomade to tame into loose spikes. The one, ghostly glimpse he had received of himself in the fogged-over washstand mirror had revealed a thin, neat line bisecting the end of his left brow. Another cut through the dark scruff on his jaw before a depilatory charm rendered its presence nearly invisible. As he opened his closet, reaching for shirt and trousers, he had had to pause at the unfamiliar order of their hanging - and felt a bubble of mania swell beneath his diaphragm at the thought of Grindelwald having to manage the laundry.

Swallowing hard against it, he stripped the hangers and tossed each article of his workday dress from closet and drawer upon the bed, feeling a spiteful obstinacy in leaving the covers still thrown back. Each movement as he began to dress was sharp, precise, furious; as incisive as the fling of a curse.

But as he wrapped himself into each familiar layer, he could feel something finally begin to settle inside. There were still those disturbing, niggling differences - the now looser fit of trousers and vest, a fumble over the knot of the tie until he learned to angle his hand just so - but with each lapel that he snapped and smoothed down, each layer that tucked neatly into the next, he could feel himself expanding, unfurling, filling this second skin that he had so carefully selected for himself and donned for countless hours.

As he slotted the final detail in place - the slender collar pin through its eyelets - he turned to face the full length mirror ... and there stood Percival Graves, Director of Magical Security, Head of the Magical Congress of the United States of America’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

He felt a warmth curl through him that had nothing to do with the layers that now insulated him from the nip of a New England morning. Pushing his shoulders back into the stretch of thick fabrics, rib cage expanding, he felt as if he could finally breathe ...

But the satisfaction lasted only up until he raised his right hand to flick away imaginary lint, and the absence of where his smallest finger had been was highlighted stark against the dark fabric.

_Don't do that again. I can use any piece of you, you know, not just your hair. Next time, I might take something much more substantial._

His teeth were suddenly clenched so hard that shooting pains were lancing up his jaw.

Graves abruptly turned to a drawer, jerking it open with an unseemly rattle, digging out gloves that he normally eschewed until the first snowfall. But he yanked them on now, black against the black of his clothes, foregoing breakfast as he strode rapidly out of his apartment, a snap of his wrist re-arming the wards around his home.


	2. The British Are Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She gave him an icy look. “Subtle. But as it so happens, I did, though I hardly needed the Ghost's reminder of our troubles. I received a message last night stamped with enough seals to decorate a general’s uniform. The British are coming.”
> 
> Graves’ brows shot upward.
> 
> “Led by the renowned auror, war hero, and duly protective elder brother of our recent visitor with his suitcase of undocumented misdemeanors, Theseus Scamander.”
> 
> Graves’ brows shot downward.
> 
> “He demanded, along with Grindelwald in chains, that you be sacked.”
> 
> Graves schooled his expression into perfect blandness. “I see. So. Was my being put on leave, then … strategic?” he asked carefully.

As Graves stepped out of the stream of morning commuters, a slim young woman approached him determinedly from beneath the Woolworth owl’s stone gaze. Her brown hair was more sensibly than fashionably bobbed, and her attire was professional but unremarkable. Nevertheless, he felt a vague sense of familiarity, one that was cemented when she greeted him with a polite, “It’s good to see you back, Sir.”

“Is it?” was his reflexive response, but as her look slowly collapsed into dismay, he took pity and sighed. “Goldstein, was it? But you didn’t go by your proper name. Patricia?”

Her spine snapped straight. “Porpentina. Tina. Sir.”

“Tina,” he acknowledged reluctantly. “Is there something I can help you with, Miss Goldstein?”

“I’m to be your escort, Sir. Until Evidence returns your wand. And to refresh you on all the updated codes since, ah, since they were most likely compromised - “

“I hardly see the need for the latter. The new ones have most likely been compromised too; we’ll just be forced to change them again later.”

He left Goldstein open-mouthed behind him for all of two steps before her heels were rapidly click-clacking after him. “I - I’m sorry, Sir, I don’t see what you mean - “ she stammered, before realizing that they were about to walk face first into the no-maj doors and hastily flicked her wand ahead of them.

“It’s quite simple, Goldstein,” he said, never hesitating as, between one step and the next, they transitioned from the dull scuff of poured concrete to the bright echo of polished marble. “When first informed of Grindelwald’s successful impersonation of myself for over two, lengthy months, two scenarios immediately came to mind. One, that the various people I have worked alongside of, off-and-on, for nearly twenty years did not know me well enough to tell me from a Dark Wizard. Granted, I can be somewhat of a taskmaster at times, but I think it’s a rather uncharitable assessment of this country’s best and brightest magical talent, wouldn’t you agree?”

He could almost hear an audible gulp beside him as he led the way to the elevator.

“Two, that someone _had_ suspected, or begun to suspect. And they were either swiftly disabused of such notions, bribed, or dispensed with. While the less desirable of the two, for the sake of my pride, I’m hoping it’s not the collective incompetency of my people that’s allowed the charade to continue for as long as it had.”

“But, with all that’s been happening, I don’t think that any one of us would have had regular contact with you recently except Madam President - ” Goldstein leaped to defend, before she clapped a hand over her mouth, chagrined. “I mean, not that I think she’s incompetent, Sir, just that - “

Graves cast her a bland look. “If not you, then at least everyone else in the rest of the wizarding world,” he mused darkly, withdrawing a copy of the morning’s _New York Ghost_ from within his coat and handing it to her as they stepped into the elevator cage. “It appears that someone finally let on as to how Grindelwald came to be in our clutches.”

As Goldstein’s brow furrowed over the glaring headline, ‘MACUSA MADE A MOCKERY?’ Graves was forced to field a sidelong squint from the elevator operator. “I knew there was something off with yous,” it grumbled. When Graves arched an eyebrow, it bared both rows of its yellowed teeth in a gleeful, goblin grin. “Yous hardly frown a’tall when I took yous for a ride.” It heaved, and the crank was thrown upwards in a terrible grinding of gears.

Somewhat grateful now that he had skipped breakfast when the cage rocketed upwards with matching enthusiasm, Graves dismally realized that he was in a truly sad state of affairs if his life could have been simplified by someone listening to a goblin's gossip.

* * *

In point of fact, Graves _had_ made an attempt to alert someone that something was wrong. There were verbal cues he had planted in what he was forced to divulge, before Grindelwald had learned too much, that would hint at information or cooperation given under duress. That not all was as it seemed. And Graves had handpicked his second; a smart man with a good head on his shoulders, whom he had looked forward to handing off more and more responsibilities to in the near future.

His suspicions, as the days had turned into weeks and months without change, were only confirmed when he had made an inquiry with a mediwitch after his rescue and she had returned with somber eyes, “I am very sorry, Mr. Graves, but William Hart died nearly two months ago. A freak accident, I’m told.”

As had Daniel McMullen. Helen Rummage. Darlene Winkworth. Marvin Burns. All from varied reasons, but, in the end, all still dead.

There were others who weren’t, but made just as impotent. The small handful he had tracked down so far had been scattered through some of the most menial departments imaginable. One had even ended up transferred to the bayous of Louisiana, of all things; something about documenting how large an infestation of runespoors had become when an illegal pet trade released them into the wild to evade a raid.

The people who had either risen in the ranks with him, or whom he had collaborated with in the past, those whom he had known through either personal experience or by review, had been steadily shuffled away. Now, his personal staff was composed of virtual strangers. Strangers, of whom no few were probably under the dark wizard’s influence if what Graves had read of Goldstein and Scamander’s botched execution was any indication, and the rest were too junior, or transferred from departments with no practical experience for their new positions.

Letting the latest folder drop amidst six piles that were slowly merging into one incoherent mass, Graves sent a mouse memo scurrying off into the tubes before pinching his nose and leaning back with a groan.

A hesitant, “Sir? You memo'ed?” eventually followed the click of his door opening.

Graves waved blindly toward one of the two chairs before his desk. Goldstein murmured a quiet _Leviosa_ to remove the papers stacked upon the seats, and he gave her a moment to compose herself.

“What is your current position, Miss Goldstein?” he asked from behind his hand.

“Auror, Sir. In Investigations, with - “

“Cases?”

“Uhm … no specific case right now, just … well, everyone is still busy trying to smooth over a several-day, city-wide oblivias. The stock exchange alone was a huge - “

“Good enough. You are now my personal aide, effective immediately. You’ll be answering to no one but me.”

“Sir?” came out as a squeak, and he finally dropped his hand to eye her narrowly.

“Will it be a problem?” he asked slowly, trying to parse her stiff look of apprehension. “Is it because you were sentenced to death by someone using my face?”

She flushed. “Oh, oh no, Sir! I - we all understand it wasn’t really you. I was just surprised - it’s a great honor, but I thought you would want … someone that you know for such a position.”

He suppressed a sigh, rolling his shoulders in a vain attempt to work out the stiffness of long hours hunched over the desk. “To be frank, I know no one right now. It will take some time to sort out who were innocent transfers and promotions, and who were Grindelwald’s choices. For all I know, even those whom I might have trusted in the past have been Imperiused, blackmailed, or turned. Until I can work that out, though, you are the one, single subordinate I can directly command that I have absolutely no doubts about, considering your role in the past weeks' events.”

Her mouth rounded in a silent ‘oh’ before she took a deep breath, straightening her spine, and met his gaze with a firm nod. “Then, thank you, Sir. It will be a pleasure to work with you.”

Graves felt a corner of his mouth curl upwards in spite of himself. She still needed some seasoning, but there were the makings of a fine Auror in the girl yet. “A bit premature, I think, for such an opinion, but we’ll manage things somehow.” A grimace as he eyed the disarray between them, and he added darkly, “We’ll have to.”

* * *

“Porter?”

“Owls sorting. November 13th.”

“Adams?”

“Uhm, which one?”

“Either.”

“Maintenance. July 10th. And … “ Papers rustled, a thump as an entire pile was simply moved aside, and then a small sound of triumph preceded, “The Apothecary. October 1st. Inventory and ingredients.”

“Inventory? Isn’t that a house elf’s job?” Graves muttered beneath his breath as he painstakingly made shorthand notations beside cramped rows of names. “Pimpernel?”

“Sorry, Sir, haven’t come across that one yet.”

After three hours and an in-office lunch, they had managed to settle into a well-oiled routine. Graves’ paranoia had been honed to a fine point over the last few months, and he wanted to cross-check everything personally.

That meant a _lot_ of records to go through.

Goldstein had managed to forget formalities by the first half-hour, and now sat upon the floor directly in a fairy ring composed of tottering stacks of files, pumps kicked off into one corner. Graves had hung up his own jacket alongside scarf and coat, but found himself reluctant to dispense with the gloves, as odd as they might seem indoors.

He told himself that he was hardly in denial, considering that the unaccustomed angle in which he had to brace his hand to write was a constant reminder.

And besides, deep down, he knew it wasn’t really about the finger at all.

“Jonas.”

“Uhm … hold on. I think I remember that one, it was - no, no, that was Jones … “

There wasn’t even the grace of a knock before the door was summarily opened. Goldstein squeaked and hastily levitated the closest stacks away from its swing, and Graves guiltily turned the twitch of his hand toward his empty wand holster into a tug upon his vest as he stood. There was only one person who had such free access into his office.

“Madam President,” he greeted as the woman swept in, as regal as a Nigerian queen. The intricate art deco pattern of one of her ceremonial headdresses gleamed softly in the office’s electric light; she must have come directly from a more formal affair.

“I don’t see why you bother to carry on with your ‘madam presidents’ when you feel so free to ignore my orders,” she declared waspishly. There was the barest glimpse of her two leather-coated guards posting themselves outside before the door swung shut behind her. “Imagine my surprise when I find out you have Archives all in an uproar when I distinctly remember putting you on leave. I even went through the bother of appointing an acting director.”

“A man has to have hobbies, I’ve been told,” he responded phlegmatically, emptying a chair for her with a flick of his hand.

“A man has to _recover_ ,” Seraphina retorted, looking down at the papered floor with an incredulous sound before stepping delicately over a pile of folders … and finally noticed Goldstein, still seated upon the ground, a thick sheaf of files held before her face like a shield, leaving only her wide eyes visible overtop. She was so still, if it wasn’t for the fact that her legs and arms were still bent, one might have thought the auror had been struck by a Petrificus.

Seraphina stared. “Goldstein? What are you doing here?”

Graves drawled, “Meet my new aide.”

Seraphina’s head turned between Graves and Goldstein twice before she threw her hands up into the air and finished crossing the paper maze to the chair. “A new aide. Half of Archives relocated to your office. I should Stupefy you and call Philomena to come collect your well-tailored - “

“Is this mother hen routine an attempt to apologize for having not noticed I had gone missing?”

Seraphina froze. And while she had not elected to join the House of the Horned Serpent and been made President of the MACUSA because of emotive outbursts, nevertheless, her discomfiture was clear enough to make even Goldstein shift uncomfortably. The president’s gaze flicked toward the other woman at the movement, visibly hesitating to speak of something so personal in a subordinate’s presence. But when Graves pointedly did not dismiss the auror, Seraphina sighed and began earnestly, “Percival. I cannot even begin to express how sorry I am that I had not even the slightest suspicion until the end. I don’t - “

“I didn’t say that to make you feel guilty,” he interrupted wearily as he slumped into his own seat, “but to point out its ridiculousness. You have a wizarding congress to look after - it was my job to look after everything else so that you could concentrate on yours.”

Her mouth tightened. “Are you feeling guilty?”

He smiled grimly. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

She cast a pointed look around at the paper chaos surrounding them. “I don’t think work is the best place to find that answer. I’m going to need you in top form as soon as possible, and was attempting to be altruistic by giving you space to get yourself put back together.”

“Miss Goldstein, take note. The president and altruism have finally made an acquaintance.”

“Percival,” Seraphina said severely, ignoring the nervous rustle of papers behind her. “You of all people know that the last thing we need in a time of crisis is for anyone to be at less than their best, particularly someone as critical as you.”

“And there is so only so much lying about a body can do,” Graves retorted with his own frown. “What was I supposed to do, count my remaining fingers for the hundredth time?” She was off-balance enough that she flinched, and he felt cruel. But he had learned over the years that the only way Seraphina gave quarter was when she was made to - the wampus had also chosen her, after all, though the president’s battles tended to take place in debates rather than on the field. "I needed a distraction, and at least this made me feel productive on top of it.”

Seraphina drew herself up with a long breath, resettling her composure as she eyed him closely, but not ungently. “Just remember that I, too, was distracted. And look at what it nearly cost us.”

Graves exhaled sharply through his nose, letting her words rest between them before attempting to console, “Grindelwald was quite busy behind the scenes. He made sure you were preoccupied - I’ve read the files.”

Her eyes narrowed before she asked abruptly, “How many files?”

Caught off-guard, he shifted in his seat. “Some.” Then admitted, “Most.” Then also, “And I skimmed the rest.”

Her gold-lacquered nails curled dangerously around the ends of the armrests. “Have you managed to rest at all - !“

“Yes, yes, message received,” he assured, weary of the topic, and blatantly redirected, “Did you happen to glance at today’s headlines yet?”

She gave him an icy look. “Subtle. But as it so happens, I did, though I hardly needed the _Ghost's_ reminder of our troubles. I received a message last night stamped with enough seals to decorate a general’s uniform. The British are coming.”

Graves’ brows shot upward.

“Led by the renowned auror, war hero, and duly protective elder brother of our recent visitor with his suitcase of undocumented misdemeanors, Theseus Scamander.”

Graves’ brows shot downward.

“He demanded, along with Grindelwald in chains, that you be sacked.”

Graves schooled his expression into perfect blandness. “I see. So. Was my being put on leave, then … strategic?” he asked carefully.

Seraphina rolled her eyes beseechingly toward the ceiling. “By Isolt’s wand, man, I put you on leave so that you could get _well!_ The British wind sucker can _swim_ his way back across the Atlantic for all I care of his demands.”

“Including his demand for Grindelwald?”

This time, the president’s full lips thinned into an unhappy line. “They’re citing prior claims. And, of course, Albus Dumbledore is throwing his not inconsiderable influence into the ring. It’s ironic that they can accuse us in one breath of being incompetent, and in the next demand that we meekly hand them the darkest wizard of our time after they’ve already lost him once. The sensible thing now that we have him in hand is to carry out a simple, clean execution so that he doesn’t live to make another attempt at escape again.”

“I’m sure I can arrange something.”

Seraphina pinned him with a sharp look, but did not otherwise deign to acknowledge the not-quite-quip. “Theseus Scamander and his auror team should be arriving in three days. The diplomatic back-and-forth could take an additional three weeks or three months for all I know. We may very well be forced to give up Grindelwald to them in the end, but in the meantime, we have more than enough to do without worrying if a foreign visitor is going to make a further hash of things by forgetting we have Rappaport’s Law in the United States.”

He knew what was coming. He could feel his face collapsing in slow dread. “Don’t you dare - “

Seraphina smiled as she stood, as subtle and sly as the horned serpent her Ilvermorny house was named after. “You want to be distracted so badly? Babysitting should be a light enough duty to start easing you back into things.”

“And what happened to all that altruism and well wishes for me to rest when you walked in?” he noted waspishly, pushing himself to his feet. There was a flutter of papers as Goldstein also stood. “If that was all an act to set me up for - “

“Percival,” she said, an honest note of hurt in her voice, and he could feel his act of indignation suddenly deflating like a leaky balloon.

“You know I don’t mean it, Seraphina,” he huffed. “Fine. Go on. I’ll make sure your visiting Brits don’t go native.”

Relaxing into a smile, she reached across the desk to smooth an imaginary wrinkle from his tie. “Thank you, Percival Graves. I have always relied on you, and promise never to take that for granted again.” Eyes half-lidding, she gave an extra, playful tug on the tie as she added far more smugly, “And as you well know, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. One should always be willing to improvise.”

Graves rolled his eyes, but conceded the field with a bow of his head as she picked her way delicately back across the floor.

In the silence that followed the door’s click as it shut, Graves surveyed the paper haystacks littering his office and suddenly felt exhausted. The problem of Magical Security being anything but secure at the moment weighed on him, but he found his concentration shot by the president’s visit and the subsequent news that he would be playing sheepdog to Grindelwald’s escort. One of whom had apparently already decided to declare himself Graves’ personal enemy.

“Let’s call it a night,” he sighed, reaching for his jacket. “Leave everything the way it is. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

“But … “ Goldstein looked a bit lost in her little sea of files. “We were making good progress, and I don’t want to lose my place … “

“This is going to take more than three days to finish. And didn’t you hear?” his mouth curled humorlessly. “The British are coming, and I have my marching orders.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that the “bimbo” meant a macho man in the 1920’s? I was tempted to have Seraphina call Theseus the “British bimbo”, but to refrain from sowing too much confusion, I resorted to yet another esoteric slang, the “wind sucker”, which is someone given to boasting (and not a wizarding-related thing at all).


	3. Forget-Me-Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clerk finally straightened a bit, enough to free up his hand so that he could scratch contemplatively at his neck with yellowed-ivory nails. “I dunno. I mean, someone’s been waltzing ‘round as ya for almos’ three months … just an ID badge won’t - ”
> 
> “If you know that much,” Graves said lowly, pinning the clerk with a narrowed look through the bars, “then you’ll also know that Grindelwald is currently residing in the holding cells several floors below us.”
> 
> “So you say. Could be that - “
> 
> “I just want my damned wand!” he snapped. “Now are you going to let me in like all the other times you have over the last two decades or am I going to have to replace you with Red?”
> 
> The goblin didn’t even blink. “Yup. That’s you. Step on through, Sir, and have a nice day,” it said blandly with a wave of its knobbly hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally watched the rest of Fantastic Beasts, Huzzah! \o/
> 
> I'm also cleaning up the tags and character list a bit - the inspiration bug bit deep and I outlined half the story in only 2 days, and realized that I was totally lying in my tag list. So, I'll just put new ones in as I get to them, cuz I'm not convinced yet I've figured out how the whole picture's going to look by the end, but at least this way we'll be exploring together, y/y? <3

“Lunch, Sir? I hear the cafeteria’s doing Italian today - Italian Day’s always a good day.”

“Sounds good,” he mumbled as he tried to finish jotting down his thoughts before he lost them.

“Okay, want me to wait for you outside?”

It took a moment for the question to register, and then he paused, blinking. It hadn’t occurred to him that she meant to actually go _to_ the cafeteria, as opposed to just taking something back to his office as they had done yesterday. It made him hedge, “Just a moment.”

The question was taking up more thought than it really should, and Graves used the scratch of the Never-Empty fountain pen as cover for his ambivalence.

Lunch was a good idea - Goldstein and he had picked up where they had left off as soon as they had stepped through the door, and it had been a solid four hours of work. He was now able to start building some rudimentary lists of those he deemed innocent, those who were under suspicion, those who had probably been transferred due to ulterior motives, and so on. It was good progress, but they needed a break, and they _should_ eat; he had been nursing a low, throbbing headache since the morning that was probably in no way helped by an empty stomach.

But, to be honest, he would rather just take the chance to close his eyes for a bit. His appetite was never good when he was tired, and the thought of sitting in a large, public space filled with people he was actively investigating made the vulnerable spot between his shoulderblades itch.

It didn’t help that, as he got a better feel today for the routines in the department, it was a lot easier to notice both the number of unfamiliar faces that have taken up residence in the offices and desks around him, and the awkwardness of the sporadic ‘welcome backs’ he’d been getting as word spread that he had returned to work.

As he finished the last line and shook out his hand, he finally decided, “No, go on ahead. Just have something sent to me.”

He expected a polite, ‘are you sure?’ that would be more pro forma than genuine; even had a glib response ready on the tip of his tongue. But, instead, he received a pause long enough that he glanced up to see what was wrong, and met an unexpectedly concerned look. “Sir, are you sure you don’t want to just take the day off?”

One brow twitched upward as Graves leveled a long look upon her, and while the woman shuffled nervously beneath it, she managed to meet his stare with admirable fortitude. “You seemed just fine with carrying on yesterday.”

Goldstein visibly gathered her courage with both hands and ventured, “And you seemed more fine yesterday than you do today. If I may say so, Sir.”

Graves snorted, more amused than offended by her timorous audacity, and bent over his notes again. “I woke up too early and couldn’t get back to sleep. None of us have died from a little lack of rest; quite the contrary, I'm led to believe it’s the natural state of Aurors more often than not.”

“Did anyone give you some Dreamless Sleep Potion?”

Amusement immediately fled. This time, Graves set his pen down very deliberately and looked at her with an open frown. “Just because I didn’t sleep doesn’t mean it was because of dreams.” Dreams were hardly necessary when one got up in the middle of the night and forgot that only one person in the world wore his face now. The spike of adrenaline had been more than enough to chase sleep away for the rest of the night, and the pieces of the poor mirror were now sitting in a box, waiting for the return of his wand for a Reparo. Reminded, he waved a paper mouse into the tubes - a somewhat less-politely worded inquiry to Evidence as to the status of his wand - as he concluded, “And even if someone had given me Dreamless Sleep Potion, I don’t see how it is any of your business.”

Perversely, his open displeasure only seemed to brace her spine. While something he would have ordinarily lauded in an Auror - there were woefully few instances in which they had the pleasure of dealing with accommodating souls - currently he found it somewhat inconvenient in his own aide. “Maybe if I hadn’t heard directly from the president that you were supposed to have been on leave. How did you manage to get operations to send an escort in the first place?”

Was this how they had finally discovered the truth? Tina Goldstein had nattered Grindelwald into revealing his true colors? “If you truly wish to play nursemaid, Goldstein, that can be arranged. I assure you, however, that your salary for it will be far less handsome.”

She paused, giving him faint hope that she had found her common sense … then promptly dashed it when she held up a finger and noted, “Well, I already survived being demoted once. By Grindelwald, no less.”

Graves sighed. Where had all that timid deference gone? But then, considering she had also purportedly barged in on the president’s affairs no less than twice, perhaps there was quite a bit of precedent already and _he_ was the foolish one for not heeding it. “Believe me, Goldstein, I have been made more than aware of my current limitations. Give it a rest. If I’m tripping over my own feet tomorrow, _then_ you have permission to give free reign to the _bubbe_ inside and tell me, ‘I told you so’. Agreed?”

Goldstein looked alternately tickled and incensed by his characterization before huffing in surrender. “Fine,” she said as she stood, brushing the wrinkles out of her trousers with a brusque sweep of her hands. “Are you sure you don’t want to join me in the cafeteria?”

And there it was, the polite question. But somehow, as she waited and watched him with those earnest brown eyes, it didn’t seem so formulaic as he had previously imagined; enough that he went to the trouble of scrounging up a mostly-true excuse. “Thank you, but I have some personal projects I would like to get caught up on. If I work on them now, I won’t feel so guilty about taking up MACUSA time.”

Goldstein shook her head as she moved to leave. “You’ll be sorry when you finally decide to come out and it turns out to be Meatloaf Day.”

“Life is full of gambles,” he retorted dryly as the door closed behind her. Reaching out as the office fell into ringing silence - strange, how even when quiet, the presence of another person seemed to fill a space - he dug out a particular folder and stared morosely at the neat type across its tab: McMullen, Daniel. “And some pay off better than others,” he muttered before flipping the cover open.

* * *

An out-of-control no-maj delivery truck.

A chance ricochet during a sting.

Misfire of a damaged wand.

Splinched.

Four of his best people, reduced to four thin folders upon his desk.

Graves leaned an elbow upon his chair’s arm and pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing against the building ache behind his eyes. He had known them well - had even taken a personal hand in Winkworth’s career - and they had been dead and buried for nearly two months.

More than _anything_ \- more than the stealing of his life and reputation, more than jeopardizing all that he had sworn to keep safe, more than the mind games and the pain and the recovery - _this_ was what made him want to march up to Grindelwald and cast an Avada Kedavra and damn the consequences.

He did not want to have to think how ‘lucky’ it was that the casualties had ‘only’ numbered four. He did not want to think how much he would have given to at least attend their damned funerals, much less to have prevented those funerals altogether. And that it had all been brushed off as bad luck or bad circumstances, had not even had the most rudimentary investigation as to how a full-fledged _Auror_ could have possibly -

The rustle of paper claws was the perfect distraction as a memo arrived.

He opened his eyes to see the mouse nosing, lost, through the hills and valleys of paper on his desk before finding the edge closest to him and unfolding itself with a pounce. It was Evidence, finally, with various excuses about missed communications and how his wand had been available for quite a while now and the recent flood of work they had received after the hubbub of Grindelwald’s capture, _et cetera, et cetera_. Graves didn’t bother finishing the memo before he shrugged on his jacket and strode out of his office.

Evidence was fronted by a goblin clerk, as fastidious and obsessive as the goblin-kind managing the banks of Wizarding Britain across the Atlantic. His station was an unprepossessing cubby that looked little different from a money exchange - a counter behind a half-cage that was more decorative than utilitarian. The real protection lay in the wards spelled into the very walls around the phonebooth-sized nook, set on a hairpin trigger.

Set deep in the foundations of MACUSA, there was only one corridor leading in and out of Evidence, and Graves passed through alternating pools of light and shadow as he walked beneath bare bulbs installed down the centerline of the ceiling. The goblin watched him approach with bored indifference, head propped upon a fist, face set into the habitual grimace of its kind.

“Director Percival Graves,” he identified himself as he came to a stop at the barred window. “Here to retrieve my wand.”

“Do y’have any other forms of identification?” the clerk rasped.

Graves paused, perplexed. Usually, he gave the requisite verbal formula for the sake of the wards, and then he simply proceeded through. “Do I need to point out that the wards have yet to seal me in?”

The clerk shrugged one shoulder with exaggerated nonchalance. “ _I’m_ askin’ ya, not the wards.”

Graves cast a disbelieving look at the featureless wood paneling around them before focusing once more on the recalcitrant goblin. “If the wards are satisfied, then what further identification could you possibly check?”

The clerk finally straightened a bit, enough to free up his hand so that he could scratch contemplatively at his neck with yellowed-ivory nails. “I dunno. I mean, someone’s been waltzing ‘round as ya for almos’ three months … just an ID badge won’t - ”

“If you know that much,” Graves said lowly, pinning the clerk with a narrowed look through the bars, “then you’ll also know that Grindelwald is currently residing in the holding cells several floors below us.”

“So you say. Could be that - “

“I just want my damned wand!” he snapped. “Now are you going to let me in like all the other times you have over the last two decades or am I going to have to replace you with Red?”

The goblin didn’t even blink. “Yup. That’s you. Step on through, Sir, and have a nice day,” it said blandly with a wave of its knobbly hand.

Releasing his exasperation with a long breath, a little surprised himself by how short his temper had become, Graves barely waited long enough for a square of panelling to fold in on itself before he stepped through. When the wall reassembled itself behind him, the only source of light left came from the end of a short corridor; an archway filled with a bright, buttery glow that he had to squint against until he emerged and his eyes adjusted.

Evidence was filled with the light of thousands and thousands of permanent shielding charms. A rotunda as wide as the Woolworth building above and extending for at least ten stories overhead, the walls were compartmentalized like a beehive, orderly rows of enclosures with their shimmering, shifting fields of spellwork shedding enough light to make extra illumination redundant. In the center, four giant pillars were similarly partitioned; like elegant mosaics, the niches spiralled round and round each thick trunk, all the way up into the heights.

Drifting serenely between them were the long, hexagonal shells of the alcoves themselves as their indexed items were alternately retrieved or stored by the technicians. Rather than build the containment system into the walls, the walls were actually composed of the individual cubbies magically stacked upon themselves, and they slotted themselves neatly in and out according to the dictates of the Evidence logs.

Unlike Archives, with their folded rooms and shrinking shelves, Evidence often housed dark and dangerous artefacts - things that didn’t react well to a Diminuendo, or that had been costly in manpower or resources to recover, and would be costly to have released again. By comparison, the holding cells below were mere nods to security; those were only temporary measures, guarded more by the Aurors than by standing wards or charms. Prisoners were most often held only long enough for their hearing or trial - afterward, they were destined for release, more permanent prison facilities outside the city, or the execution chamber.

Evidence was a bit less efficient in clearing out their stores - just witness the fiasco concerning his wand. Some items were even rumored to have been in custody since the establishment of the Statute of Secrecy and the founding of MACUSA itself.

“Director Graves,” he said as he walked up to the counter positioned directly in front of the corridor. Not unlike a no-maj receptionist’s desk, it was currently manned by an older witch whose gray-streaked hair was still unfashionably long in the style of another age, but pulled back into a no-nonsense bun. “I’m here to retrieve my wand.”

She barely bothered to glance up at him as she finished jotting down a note into the heavy tome of the index log, double-checked her copy, then disintegrated the original memo with a quick tap of her wand. Another flick, and the pages of the index flipped themselves to a particular entry, and she peered down her nose through the half-spectacles perched upon it. “Graves, Percival,” she recited. “Ebony, wampus hair, fifteen inches. Submitted November 1st, 1926, by Fink, G., reference case number G23096-1.c.” He had barely made an affirmative noise when she tapped her wand-tip upon the miniscule line with impressive accuracy. “You may wish to sit down for a moment, Director. The smaller items tend to be stored up top and take a bit of time to nip down again.”

Experience told him that there were benches lined up near the entrance for expressly that purpose, but he found his attention straying, instead, to the workrooms lining the edges of Evidence’s ground floor. Large windows looked in on them for the benefit of outside observers, the few exceptions being the more heavily warded rooms where the most dangerous items would be investigated. At least this aspect was consistent with the memo he had received - nearly all of the workrooms were fully occupied when ordinarily it was rare to see even half being put to use, Aurors and technicians alike clustered around tables upon which were laid out neatly tagged objects, from the everyday to the esoteric.

Graves wandered over to the nearest window for a closer look, watching with vague interest as two men and a woman floated objects out of a storage box in the corner and catalogued them one by one - a carved wooden box, a woman’s scarf. A lamp, of all things. They were all bric-a-brac that might have occupied any living room or study, but which could all potentially hold secrets of a magical or mundane nature.

The bright, gingery hair of one of the technicians caught Graves’ eye. The man’s Irish-pale coloring stood out in any audience, but something about the hunch of his angular shoulders and gangly-thin limbs, as if he were a scarecrow given animation, made Graves realize he actually knew the man, if in a very different setting.

Bernie Shaw was a freshly minted senior Auror, with a flair for games and puzzles. The man frequently brought his latest finds to work, and had originally irritated Graves to no end with the distractions he caused until Graves realized the value of the tactical mind that so-consistently solved them. Since that epiphany, Graves had indulged in no few of Shaw’s demonstrations, albeit with the appropriate amount of grumbling that neither of them took seriously.

Except, Shaw sat at the table with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and ink on his fingers, looking like he had always worked there.

Before he even realized he was moving, Graves had opened the door. “Shaw?”

The man looked up, blinked, and then rose with a wide grin. “Director! It’s good to see you out and about.”

Graves found an answering smile just beginning to spread across his own face as he walked over to take the hand Shaw had extended. “As it is good to see you. What are you doing down in Evidence?”

“Oh. Well.” Shaw shrugged with a vaguely awkward air, one that somewhat puzzled Graves since he remembered the man as being quite disarming with his wit; an even rarer talent, he’s discovered, than good spellwork. But, perhaps it was simply the general embarrassment of the entire situation with Grindelwald, since Shaw continued unhappily, “You reassigned me. Supposedly. I’m guessing that was really you-know-who?”

“Most certainly,” Graves confirmed dryly. “Which I am happy to rectify. I’ll put the paperwork in for your reinstatement as soon as I get back to my office.”

The man’s entire demeanor lit up. “Oh thank Merlin. I’ve learned to appreciate the deductive work that Evidence has to do, but I’m really not suited to a desk job.”

Graves clapped a hand on Shaw’s shoulder, squeezing. “It’s my pleasure, believe me; you earned that rank with the Mirrorwalker case,” he said, a little more effusive than he was usually wont; but then, it felt good to finally be able to start setting something right, no matter how small or easy. “I haven’t forgotten that I still owe you a celebratory drink … why don’t you bring that Chinese Fire Maze puzzle you were going on about before when you come by? You’ve probably already solved it by now, but … “

At first, it was something indefinable; just a different tension to the air, like a barometric drop before a storm. But Graves had his hand upon the man’s shoulder and was watching Shaw’s face as the smile waned, and Graves’ own words trailed off in the face of the blank look he was receiving and the nervous shift of the muscles beneath his fingers. “I … wow, how’d you hear about the Chinese Fire Maze, Sir? Do you like puzzles too?”

Graves’ hand dropped back down by his side as he felt a chill wrap about his spine and _squeeze_.

* * *

Later, even three fingers of Firewhisky couldn’t touch the cold as Graves realized Grindelwald may not have just borrowed his life for a time, but stolen it altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I feel like I read somewhere that Red the goblin bellboy/elevator operator has a Boston accent. So, in my headcanon, for whatever reason he is named Red for the Boston Red Sox. Thus, the goblin clerk down in Evidence will be Yank, for the NY Yankees. (I looked up the naming conventions for goblins and yes this is totally not in line with any of that but this is Murica and we all know Muricans can never do things right.)


	4. Good Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the day that the British Auror contingent was supposed to arrive, Graves received a memo from the president asking him to coffee. Graves showed himself promptly to Seraphina’s office at the appointed time, assuming that she wished to review plans and protocols before they had to start keeping up appearances for their guests.
> 
> Instead, after the coffees had been poured and diluted to taste with cream or sugar, Seraphina laced her fingers together atop her desk and leaned closer with an intent look. “How are you, Percival?”
> 
> Caught with his cup halfway to a sip, Graves stared back with a dubious arch of his brows. “This isn’t about the Brits, is it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays and happy almost-New Year everyone! \o/
> 
> This turned out a lot longer than I originally planned, the holiday season turned out a lot busier than I had expected, but finally Theseus steps onto the stage and I am continuing to plot. Hurray!

On the day that the British Auror contingent was supposed to arrive, Graves received a memo from the president asking him to coffee. Graves showed himself promptly to Seraphina’s office at the appointed time, assuming that she wished to review plans and protocols before they had to start keeping up appearances for their guests.

Instead, after the coffees had been poured and diluted to taste with cream or sugar, Seraphina laced her fingers together atop her desk and leaned closer with an intent look. “How are you, Percival?”

Caught with his cup halfway to a sip, Graves stared back with a dubious arch of his brows. “This isn’t about the Brits, is it?”

“Goldstein mentioned that you have not been sleeping well.”

He scowled and set his coffee back down, untouched. “Are you turning my aide into your personal spy?”

“I was a concerned friend asking how you have been,” she returned with more patience than he expected. It made him feel even more unsettled, this gentle treatment, and he slouched into his seat with a distinctly sulky feel. “She simply answered honestly.”

“And when did you suddenly become bosom buddies with someone you had reprimanded multiple times, both officially and - “

Seraphina interrupted with an elegant wave of a hand. “I apologized, and as the courageous, insightful young Auror that I should have seen her as from the beginning, she has elected to let bygones be bygones. It seems I have misread many people lately; I am trying to learn from my mistakes.”

Graves struggled not to frown, not even sure anymore what he was so discontent with, and covered his conflict with a sip from delicate porcelain. It was the president’s own private set, brought with her from Savannah; her grandmother’s, if he recalled correctly.

“Percival,” she sighed, “I just want to get to know you again. We had only interacted officially for months - we are both very different people in those capacities. I know I can never make it up to you, what’s happened lately, but I wish to improve.”

“I told you there is nothing for you to make up for,” he grumbled, setting down the cup but not letting it go, fighting the urge to fidget.

“Fine, then assuage my guilt and indulge my whimsies. Let me paint your nails and tell you my girlish fantasies.”

Graves barely suppressed a snort, rolling his eyes as dramatically as he could. “Even when you _were_ a girl at Ilvermorny, I heard you were a terror.”

She lifted her chin, eyes wide; the very picture of affronted poise. “I beg your pardon. I comported myself no less than as if I were directly under my grandmama’s gaze every minute.”

“Alright, you were a _regal_ terror and ruled the house of the Horned Serpent with an iron fist in a velvet glove _._ And don’t think I haven’t seen that same hand in the department’s doings lately - my workday hasn’t been so uninterrupted and meeting-free since I made senior Auror.”

“A good feeling, isn’t it? Savor it while you can, it won’t last,” Seraphina smiled coyly from behind her cup.

This time, Graves gave into a snort, but found himself taking a drink of his own coffee with a bit more ease. Perhaps there was something to what she was proposing after all. “So. You are thinking of making this a regular affair?”

“I would like that, yes,” she said as she met his gaze boldly. When Seraphina made up her mind, she never went for half measures. “Would you?”

In theory, he was not unwilling. But, lately, he had begun to feel a certain exhaustion at the mere thought of having to interact with people. Between recent, personal experience that someone may not be whom they appeared to be, to the latest example of how even those who _should_ have known him may not have the same memories anymore … communications had become a minefield. He never knew if his next blind move would end in a very unpleasant surprise for all concerned.

Taking a deep breath and straightening himself with elbows braced upon the armrests, he tried to divert with a joke instead of answering, “You should reconsider agreeing so quickly. If I’m getting a chance to have uninterrupted access to your ear on a regular basis, I’m going to start bringing wishlists of all my favorite things with me.”

There was a distinct click as the cup was set down upon its saucer and Seraphina clasped her hands with great deliberation upon her desk. But rather than words of reservation or even jest, she merely said, dark eyes intent, “Go on.”

* * *

Graves left the president’s office thinking that he knew a little of how Isolt had felt, brought to the Horned Serpent by a dream - the world in a haze, things not quite real, hands filled with a gift of dubious provenance that he had no idea what to do with yet.

Seraphina was much more serious about this than he had originally thought. If this had been what she was like when she had been on the campaign trail for presidency, her opponents had never stood a chance.

But Graves was no stranger to the political arena either. While he had been focused on the personnel problem thus far and simply hoped that the bureaucratic machine’s existing inertia could take care of everything else for a time, eventually, he would also have to take a look at anything else that Grindelwald could have affected. Things that Seraphina could be essential to, or a powerful ally in helping him untangle or rectify: policies, budgets, allocations, agreements … considering the amount of damage Grindelwald had already done to the department’s roster, Graves shuddered to think what else the dark wizard could have gotten up to in his copious spare time.

So, being unprepared, he had made only one particular request today, to which the president had promptly agreed to. But, forewarned now, he could put together a -

“Oh! Excuse me!”

Graves stepped blindly aside, hands flying up to help steady a tray upon which things clinked and clattered. “I beg your pardon,” he said automatically, finally registering that he had nearly walked right into one of the ubiquitous office assistants carrying half a dozen cups of fresh coffee.

“Oh, it’s quite all right, honey, nothing spilt,” the slip of a woman said with a winsome smile as she met his gaze. “Would you like a cup?”

“No, thank you, I just had some while at the president’s - “ he began to demur, mind already struggling to find the threads of thought he had dropped.

“Don’t worry, sweety, everyone says my charms are the best at keeping things fresh until you’re ready. You work too hard, Mr. Graves - you might need a little pick-me-up later.” She expertly shifted one hand beneath the tray to support it before drawing out her wand and tapping one of the gently steaming cups. Another wave, and two sugar lumps drifted serenely from their bowl into the coffee and a small silver spoon set itself neatly on the edge of the saucer. “Two sugars, right?”

“I … “ Graves trailed off as he found himself forced to accept the beverage for forms’ sake. “Yes, thank you. How did you - ”

“Woman’s intuition,” she winked. “Have a good afternoon, Mr. Graves,” she said as she turned with a bounce of strawberry-blond curls and continued down the hallway.

Glancing down at the superfluous cup in his hands, he sighed and perforce carried it with him back to his office.

“Good, you’re still here,” he said when he found Goldstein in one of the guest chairs, flipping through a stack of files in her lap while making notations in another laid out on a corner of his desk. “Did we get those rotations changed?”

“Yes,” she answered, finishing a last line before looking up with a wrinkle of her nose and a slump of her shoulders. “There were some grumblings, though.”

He waved the concern away as he absently set the cup down on a shelf, shrugging off his jacket and slumping into his chair. “Let them grumble. If they’re Grindelwald’s agents, I certainly don’t want them in his guard rotation. If they’re not, they should be used to taking orders without question anyway, if their performance under his impersonation was any indication. What about the list of reinstatements?”

Goldstein braced herself with a deep breath, cast an assessing gaze around, then deflated again. “I’ve finished the paperwork for about … eleven of them? Still another twelve to go.”

He sank further into his seat and braced his elbows upon the armrests. Hands laced together, he pressed steepled index fingers against his mouth and struggled to sort paranoia from healthy suspicion. When the silence stretched and Goldstein looked askance toward him, he eventually asked, “Do you find the changes that Grindelwald had made in the department … excessive?”

Her brows pinched upward. “I don’t understand, Sir.”

He nodded toward the papers in her lap, indicated the rest of the stacks about the office with a tilt of his head. Even though they had started returning records to Archives since yesterday, the room was still filled with unwieldy piles of the stuff. “He was _very_ busy for a two-to-three month stint in office, especially if he also had to keep up appearances _and_ keep tabs on the Second Salemers. And we haven’t even touched anything beyond personnel records and some associated case files, yet.”

Goldstein frowned at the room in general, a thumb absently riffling across the corners of the papers in her lap. “I … I guess. But he probably had help - isn’t that what we’ve been trying to sort out? Who was helping him from the inside?”

“Yes, but how did he carry out such surgically precise moves? He seems to have fired, obliviated, reassigned, and murdered _exactly_ as many as he needed to in order to avoid outright accusation, if not suspicion.” A long breath to suppress the reflexive fury that the long string of offenses always sparked, and then he asked with careful control, “What do your instincts say, Goldstein?”

He could see her startled twitch in the corner of his vision. “Me, Sir?”

“Yes, you. Your deductive skills and common sense could still use some work,” he noted dryly, “but your general instincts seem to be spot on. Your interference with the Second Salemers, for instance, is probably what led Grindelwald to reassign you to Wand Permits; to get you out of the way, once he determined his target was someone amongst them. And the way you latched onto Newton Scamander … well, we’re all well acquainted with the results of that.

“What I’m trying to say,” he overrode when she looked on the verge of blurting out some embarrassed apology, “is that you should start putting that to work. Consciously. So, what do your instincts say about the situation that’s been created for us?”

She glanced about the office, at the detritus of their past few days’ worth of work, and responded more promptly than he had expected, “That we need more help.”

Though she had spoken in complete sincerity, a sharp laugh escaped him. “You don’t need to look so startled, Goldstein,” he said wryly at the expression on her face. “Yes, you’re absolutely correct. We need more help. Those eleven whose paperwork you’ve already finished will be the beginnings of it. Anything else you would like to add?”

The woman bit her lip pensively, and he was pleased to see that, in spite of her reputation for impulsivity, this time she gave the question due consideration before opining, “Maybe it wasn’t just because he was afraid of being discovered. He’s supposed to be a genius - maybe he was doing a lot of things at the same time. Maybe there were other reasons he was moving the people he did.”

Graves nodded. “A good assumption. Any conjectures as to what those other reasons may be?”

Here, Goldstein spread her hands helplessly. “I guess … well, other than the … than the obscurus,” she stumbled over the term with audible regret, “the only other goal we know about is how he wishes wizard-kind to rule over the no-majs.”

This time, he gave her a measured look. “You were … close to the obscurial, weren’t you? Credence Barebones.”

She pressed her lips tight and gave a small, jerky nod. “Maybe not close, but … I tried to help him. Twice,” she admitted quietly, head bowed. “But I wasn’t able to save him. Either of those times.”

Graves exhaled audibly. “Unfortunately, none of us have a perfect record in that regard.” Unsure what else he could say that wouldn’t just end in platitudes, he eventually consulted his pocketwatch and sought to change the topic instead. “The British are supposed to arrive in two hours. I would like you to be in my party when we greet them. I think it would also be a good opportunity to ease those newly reinstated Aurors back into working directly with me. See how many of them you can round up in the next half-hour and let them know I’d like to speak to them.”

“Yes, Sir,” Goldstein packed up her work, giving him a last nod as she began to leave. But, straddling the threshold with her hand still upon the doorknob, she paused to look back. “Sir … I don’t know what other motives Grindelwald might’ve had, but I can see why he had to move so many people away from you. That is, from himself, while acting as you.”

Having already started to turn his mind to other matters, he crooked a brow, flat-footed and wary. “And why is that?”

The Auror’s chin lifted determinedly. “Because he’s not like you. At all. I don’t think anyone who has actually worked with you could have been fooled for more than a week.”

Graves could only blink, speechless, as she nodded smartly before she exited.

* * *

Graves stood with Goldstein and a loose scatter of six Aurors behind him in a corner of the dock, a thin veil of Annotitium subtly directing the no-maj greeters around them to _look away, look away, look away._

The _RMS Majestic_ was already snugged up against her berth, her crew’s hails and metallic thumps echoing hollowly through the great iron belly. The crowd gathered near the dock’s edge were shifting restlessly, heads craning for a view as they waited for the passenger ramps to be extended. Sandwiched overhead and underfoot by damp, chilly concrete, with only slivers of pale afternoon light filtering past the ocean liner’s bulk, the already-chill November air seemed even more frigid than usual, the typical seawater stink cut by a waft of ash and petrol.

Graves had handpicked the Aurors, and while he didn’t know them all personally, the very fact that Grindelwald had seen fit to keep them at wand’s length had quickly put them on Graves’ shortlist of considerations. Three were still relatively early in their careers, who had unknowingly interfered with the dark wizard’s plans rather than run afoul of any personal association with Graves. One of them was the notable fellow who had landed in the Louisiana swamps; he had been embarrassingly, effusively grateful upon being recalled.

The other three were senior Aurors all. After a trial period, Graves was hoping to make them his unofficial lieutenants until he felt he had a firm handle of the DMLE again.

Frederico Rossi had the olive-toned complexion and Grecian nose of his Mediterranean forefathers, but paired with startlingly pale hazel eyes and lighter hair than the usual Italian-dark curls. The first time Graves had idly inquired after the man’s mixed ancestry, ‘Freddy’ had launched into a 20-minute epic of his parents’ love affair that, once Graves was awake enough again to process it, pretty much distilled down to how they had met on an ocean liner from Europe and a partnership of convenience had eventually become too convenient to dissolve. If it wasn’t for the fact that Rossi’s very affability was what made him so effective in intelligence and investigations, Graves would never have been willing to sit through a 20-minute retelling, even for the sake of rekindling ties that Grindelwald had erased.

At least Graves now had a reasonable assessment of Rossi’s recall ability. He was pretty certain that Rossi had delivered him the exact same recitation, word-for-word.

Kali Turner was a young black woman as fierce as her name, with high, sloping cheeks and a jawline as sharp as a blade. Her wiry black curls were shorn to a tissue-thin nap over the contours of her skull, currently hidden mostly beneath the standard-issue fedora. She was the only senior Auror Graves had picked mostly by reports and reputation - he had had very little past interaction with her.

When Turner had reported to his office an hour ago, she had returned his gaze with one that was just as frankly assessing. Working by instinct, Graves had dispensed with the usual pleasantries and asked bluntly, “So what landed you on Grindelwald’s bad side?”

She had bared teeth that were startlingly white against dark skin and responded, “I called his plan to move personnel from waterfront patrols to magical artefacts research horseshit. Sir.”

It had taken Graves all of two seconds to assign her the unenviable task of pawing through the interdepartmental communications of the last three months, to start sorting out the policy changes that Grindelwald may have made. She had wrinkled her nose but did not seemed overly displeased with the tedious but still-important task of uprooting the dark wizard’s influence from MACUSA.

The last was newly-reinstated senior Auror Bernie Shaw.

When Graves had left their chance encounter in Evidence two days ago, it had been with his wand clutched white-knuckled in his hand and a numb disbelief that had quickly spiraled into a thunderous black mood. Struggling to find a distraction and with the purely practical need to test if anything untoward had happened to his wand while it had been out of his hands, he had headed straight for the practice rooms.

And felt his temper flash-ignite when he raised his wand for a simple transfiguration test, and realized that his grip was … _unsure_.

He had power enough. He was merely the latest in a long line of Graves who had bred true to their heritage, and in his darkest humor, he would like to think that Grindelwald hadn’t needed to hold himself back too much when the dark wizard had wielded magic under the guise of the director of the DMLE.

But Graves also had _technique._ He had _finesse._ He was one of the finest duellers of his generation not because of brute force, but because he had both the strength and the _control_ . He had worked hard for it, conscious of the lives - his own included - that might depend on it, and he had been _proud_ of what he had achieved.

Except, now his grip felt as uncertain, as juvenile, as in his first years at Ilvermorny. As small a role as his little finger had seemed to play, the subtle change in balance now that it was missing left him in the unacceptable gap between ‘good enough’ and ‘virtuoso’ … and the loss of something he had so relied on, had honestly taken for granted for so long, left him feeling uncomfortably as if _he_ was the impersonator in his own skin.

The spell that had finally escaped Graves’ wand - and never mind that it was a wand that had apparently performed for a dark wizard with no apparent difficulty - had been far from an innocent transfiguration. So had been all of the ones that followed.

The practice room he had reserved that day still had a sign in front of its door stating that it was ‘not available due to refurbishment’.

“So, why do you think the Brits took an ocean liner?” Shaw’s alto abruptly cut through Graves’ brooding.

“Why not?” Turner sounded bored and challenging both; no mean feat. “They’re not going to use a portkey with a wizard of Grindelwald’s caliber. Who knows what trouble he can get up to in that split-second of distraction when they land.”

“Yes, yes, but that’s only when they take him - “

“ _If_ ,” Graves interrupted curtly.

“ - _if_ they take Grindelwald back with them. But they could have registered for a portkey coming here and saved themselves an almost-five day trip.”

“Maybe they just wanted a vacation. A relaxing cruise.” It was Rossi who answered this time, the words lilting with vague hints of an Italian accent that Graves half-suspected was affected. “Maybe they didn’t want to land all ruffled and flustered at our feet. You know - British pride, stiff upper lip, for king and country … “

“How do you expect other people to understand you if even you don’t know what you’re blathering on about?” Turner said with an audible eyeroll.

As the boarding ramp began rattling into place, Graves finally half-turned to give the three a long look. Shaw returned a faintly apologetic smile, Rossi smiled with no hint of apology at all, and Turner simply stared back with a studious look of indifference. Goldstein, grouped roughly with them, leaned away with a vaguely embarrassed air while the remaining Aurors shifted nervously in the background.

But they were all quiet now, and, Graves hoped, appropriately focused, so he turned back around in time to see the uniformed crew array themselves along the ramp and the first passengers disembark.

The no-majs let out a weak cheer, some waving hats or handkerchiefs overhead, bodies jostling for better views as the cavernous space filled with the cries of friends and loved ones seeking each other out. The initial crowd of greeters was soon engulfed by the much larger mass of bodies leaving the ocean liner.

The flagship of the White Star Line company, the _Majestic_ could carry more than two thousand passengers. So they had to wait for several long minutes as the current of people met in a chaotic swirl of laughter, hugs, and slaps on the back, luggage being sorted and finally the slow trickle of heels clicking their way toward the customs entrance at the dock’s far end. The hubbub of voices began to die down as visitors or returned citizens gave way to fresh immigrants - those who had no one to greet them in the new world, looking around with wide, lost eyes as they meekly followed their shipmates. There was the occasional buzz of other languages - Italian, German, Polish - in hushed tones or the high, curious babble of a child, their questions easily discernible in any tongue.

And, finally, nearly the very last to step off the ship, ten men and women dressed smartly in British fashions clustered loosely at the gangway, taking their time to survey the dock before proceeding onto American soil.

Graves took his own time observing them in turn; watching the way they positioned themselves relative to each other, what they looked at first, how they held themselves as a group. Only after those first few seconds did he nudge the Annotitium aside to gain their attention, and without word or signal, walked deeper into the docks, confident that both groups of Aurors would follow.

The black bulk of the ocean liner extended down the length of the dock, and there were occasional shouts and sounds of vehicles and machinery overhead as cargo was unloaded from higher decks. Down here, though, the space was mostly abandoned, even the ship crew having gone inside now that the last of the passengers had departed. Still, Graves re-cast the look-away charm once they reached the predetermined apparition point, turning to wait for the British to catch up - nine Auror counterparts, and Theseus Scamander at their forefront.

It had been an extraordinary scandal at the time when Scamander, son of a relatively minor pureblood family but whose father held an influential office at the Ministry of Magic, had quite publicly defied the emergency legislation forbidding wizarding involvement in the Great War. The media attention had certainly stood him in good stead - his image had been transformed from rebel to celebrity in less than a year, and even conservatives who had initially decried his reckless defiance and the example he set for wizarding youth were now referring to him as ‘the war hero’.

Graves had seen pictures of the man from wizarding news and official files and the Auror’s charisma had bled through, even in the few seconds that the wizarding images continuously looped through. Whatever magic his little brother had for animals, Theseus seemed to posses for humans - quite frankly, Graves was surprised that the man was not head of the British Ministry’s DMLE yet.

But then, such administrative machinations were not for all people. Scamander was clad in a modern suit of gray wool, a dark blue ascot tucked beneath the collar of the crisp white shirt, but over the formal ensemble was thrown a tan leather overcoat more suited to scouts and front-liners - scuffed, well-used, buttery-soft, completely utilitarian. His hair, lighter than his brother’s, was windblown and there were weathered lines at the corners of his gray-blue eyes. The man’s stride was long and ground-eating … he clearly expected the others to keep up without his help.

When all was taken into account along with his defiance of his government’s legislation during the war, it was clear that Scamander was a man of action and wasn’t planning on retiring from the field anytime soon.

With all this in mind, Graves waited until the man was nearly in arm’s length before he extended a hand and began formally, “I am Percival Graves, Director of MACUSA’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and I welcome you to - “

Scamander’s punch sent Graves reeling backwards.

Graves’ instinctive volley of wandless force sent Scamander careening into the Auror ranks behind him.

There was a single second of frozen incredulity on both sides … and then a collective roar erupted while wands whipped out of their holsters.

But little more than noises of affront and threat had a chance to be thrown before Theseus’ laughter suddenly rose above it all. The man, untangling himself from two of his compatriots, staggered back to his feet with a shake like a dog shedding water. “That’s quite the reflex you have there, Director. At least I can respect that, even if I still want to strangle you with your own entrails for nearly getting my brother executed.”

Fuming, Graves worked his aching jaw before he snapped, “And I have far less for your intelligence. Has it not penetrated your thick English skull that I was not the one who ordered his execution?”

Scamander inhaled deeply, wincing and rubbing at a sore spot. “Oh, I understood that part well enough.” Graves straightened warily when the man approached, but this time the Auror did nothing more than stop at exactly arm’s length, eyes glittering. “You may not have given the orders, but your people still tried to carry them out. How deep does the rot reach, Director?”

Graves’s jaw tightened, and he tried to ignore the lance of new pain throbbing beneath his eye. He could hear how his people stilled behind him, breaths held - waiting to see if he would take the insult and the responsibility. Waiting to see if he would lay the blame on them instead and admit to MACUSA’s vulnerability. “Unfortunately, it’s been left to us to clean up what messes you haven’t managed to keep on your own side of the Atlantic,” he bit out. “Unless you plan on applying for American citizenship and running for DMLE directorship here, I suggest you look to your own job and leave me to take care of mine.”

Scamander’s mouth twitched even as his gaze flattened. “You should be happy, then, that we’re here to make your job much easier … as good neighbors, after all, we’d hate to see you overwhelmed.”

Graves bared his teeth. “As good neighbors, we are likewise interested in making things easy for you - but, we can only do so much if a quick, painless execution is off the table.” When the corners of Scamander’s mouth turned downward, Graves waved a hand dismissively, and felt a tiny curl of dark satisfaction at the way hands twitched reflexively for wands at the motion though Scamander himself stood fast. “But I believe such discussions are above both our pay grades, yes? Now, if you’ll follow me, President Picquery would like to give you her own welcome back at MACUSA.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the 1920's, the record for a trans-atlantic voyage by an ocean liner was 4.5 days. These became the forerunners of the modern cruise ships when commercial flights became affordable and reduced the travel time from a matter of days to a matter of hours, making ocean liners obsolete.
> 
> The RMS Majestic was originally the SS Bismarck, designed and constructed by shipbuilders in Hamburg, Germany. It was ceded to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles before it had been finished, and was jointly bought by the White Star and Cunard Lines before being finished and put into work sailing between Southampton and New York.
> 
> Sometimes history is fun! \o/


	5. With Friends Like These

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Finally decided to stop hiding, Director?” Scamander murmured with all appearances of good cheer as he turned to face the same direction as Graves, hands clasped loosely behind his back.
> 
> “Do you always like to shake every tree you pass to see what falls out?” Graves returned levelly, voice pitched to the same volume. “It makes one wonder how often you’ve had things fall on your head with that strategy.”
> 
> Scamander chuckled, smile filled with just a few too many teeth. “I learned the hard way that sometimes it’s better to poke a stick in the hole when the timing’s right for me, rather than wait till when the timing’s right for whatever’s lurking inside.”  
> \--  
> Graves has a pretty sucky day. Unfortunately, it won't be the last of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kudos and lovely comments! This piece is so self-indulgent but hearing/seeing you all enjoy it along with me is an awesome feeling that I'm never gonna get enough of. ^_^
> 
> Wow, it took me forever to put Scamander and Graves together and then I feel like such a terrible tease cuz it's such a short section, but believe me, there'll be a lot more. Just ... a lot lot later. >.> Sorry! #notetheslowbuildtag

As Graves applied his signature to the latest amendments and herded the request for an office expansion into the correct tube, he wondered darkly how Grindelwald had expected to hide any of his movements when bureaucracy apparently required everything to be documented in triplicate.

In point of fact, the forms Graves had just submitted were backdated; he had already had his previously single office expanded to accommodate two more desks before he received a sternly worded memo that he had not received permission for or registered the expansion with the Department of Building Operations, Maintenance, and Logistics. Which apparently included everything from ensuring the dimensional spells that kept the boundaries between MACUSA and the Woolworth building from merging with catastrophic results, to the janitorial staff that emptied the trash at night.

It had, in actuality, been one of the house elves assigned to clean his block of offices that had tattled.

Graves leaned back in his seat and resisted the urge to rub the dryness from his eyes again, all too aware now after his chat with Seraphina of Goldstein’s sharp gaze occupying one of the new desks. The other was assigned to Turner, though the Auror was presently giving the British a tour of MACUSA’s public areas along with Shaw and Rossi. That desk was already starting to overflow with requested copies of past interdepartmental communications, and more were scurrying in by the hour.

Graves’ own desk, recently cleared of the files Goldstein and he had been studying for the better part of the past week, was now slowly disappearing beneath its own stream of memos. These, however, were timestamped depressingly recently, and all addressed specifically to him - it seemed that Seraphina’s implied interference had finally met its limits and the office’s everyday duties were finally catching up to him.

He hadn’t been sitting as director for as long as he had, though, without learning the invaluable tool of delegation. Taking a deep breath and a long sip of coffee, grimacing more at how the caffeine made his temples throb than the now tepid temperature, he shoved everything into a corner with a wave of his hand and began to sort it from the top into various stacks that would eventually go to others depending on the topic and urgency.

There were the typical complaints and suggestions. Reminders of upcoming deadlines - and notices of deadlines that had passed, two of which made him scowl deeply. There had been amendments and allocations he had been trying to push through which have now failed due to Grindelwald’s indifference or active obstruction - he would have to start the lobbying process all over again. Budgeting and resources, updates on flagged cases, new ones that needed the attention of higher authorities - with a worrying upward trend in the sheer number of them, but not unexpected as criminal elements took advantage of the DMLE’s preoccupation in the wake of Grindelwald’s chaos - and he frowned as he skimmed one in particular and took the time to read a little closer.

It was an article clipped from a no-maj newspaper, its headline pronouncing in narrow, blocky serif, ‘A New Syndicate?’. Someone had taken a pen and circled two silhouettes in the photograph of a closed storefront with crates stacked nearly roof-high before it. Two grainy figures had been caught in the shadows, wearing identical overcoats and fedoras. One of them had an arm raised ... and about a foot from where the hand would be was a soft point of light, as if a no-maj flashbulb had gone off, but which Graves suspected - _knew_ \- was something that had nothing to do with no-maj gadgets. In the side margin, the pen-wielder had scratched out in all caps, ‘CASE MA04782 - TIP-OFF??’.

Feeling a flutter of misgiving, Graves quickly drafted two notes - one requesting a copy of the case details in question, and the other to the sender of the article for more information. The last thing he did was to rebundle the article with a personal note stating simply, ‘I’m on it. -PG’ and addressed it to the president’s office. The last thing Seraphina needed in her defense before the International Confederation of Wizards was magical affairs being printed in no-maj papers.

It was an unpleasant reminder that Grindelwald’s influence might not have been localized to the Auror ranks … he could have even planted or suborned minor clerks. It didn’t take someone with a terribly high clearance to leak the movements of routine operations or even some regular patrols. With the ICW already breathing down their necks, the opposition didn’t need much ammunition to bring Seraphina in for a public inquiry and, potentially, a formal censure … and the last time that had happened to a head of state, the British Minister for Magic had been forced to step down.

Graves pressed a knuckle against the bridge of his nose, suddenly feeling the full weight of how precariously balanced everything was right now, and how very little it would take to topple it all.

“Sir? Are you alright?”

Damn. Graves straightened, trying not to make the movement look too hasty, and made a show of checking his pocketwatch. “I think I’ve been sitting too long; it’s probably about time for me to go find a bite to eat,” he said as he pushed his chair back and stood.

“Oh. I could do with a little something myself - “

“Actually, I need you to take care of these first,” he waved a stack of papers toward her and she blinked, automatically raising her hands for them to float into even as she opened her mouth on a protest. “We need to start enlisting the squad leaders that we can trust into helping shake out the lower ranks; the schedules have been a mess while we iron out the details of two million Obliviations. You can take a longer break afterward.”

Her disappointed acknowledgment barely made it through the door before he closed it behind him.

He felt a twinge of guilt; she hadn’t deserved the brush-off. As overeager as Goldstein was sometimes, he didn’t exactly _dislike_ their current close working arrangement. She had a good heart that wasn’t easily overridden, and she was bright ... adaptable … _observant ..._

_Shhh ... I’m just going to sit here and observe you for a while, if you don’t mind. Just a nice, relaxing evening here in the basement, yes, Percival?_

Graves flinched and blinked, reeling his mind back from its instinctive tip into the emptiness of Occlumency. He rolled his shoulders with an irritated grunt; he didn’t have time for woolgathering. There had been a thought teasing the back of his mind earlier that felt like it could be important, when he had wondered what other positions Grindelwald might have targeted for agents and the timing of the article …

“Oh hey, boss. Good timing - Bernie’s doing his best, but you might want to start thinking about sending in some more dancing monkeys soon.”

Sighing, Graves put on his best unimpressed look before turning to face the Auror ambling his way. “I thought I had assigned you to observe them and give me a report on the others.” Scamander needed little introduction, but the dossiers on the other nine Aurors that the British Ministry of Magic had sent had been suspiciously thin.

Rossi shrugged. The man’s jacket was unbuttoned and his hands tucked rakishly into his trouser pockets; he looked more as if he was about to engage a lady friend rather than a diplomatic tour. “I observed. They looked bored.” Drawing himself up and tucking one hand genteelly beneath his jacket’s lapel, he intoned in a slow, practiced English accent, “In that posh, British way where they’re terribly polite and ‘sorry ol’ chap’ that they even have to hint that they’re bored, but can we please move it along, cheerio.”

“England has a museum dedicated to something on practically every other corner. I don’t see how they could possibly be put off by yet another tour,” Graves grumbled as he began walking in the direction Rossi had just come from. “And remind me to never assign you a role where you have to be anything other than American or Italian.”

“I like the way they talk,” Rossi defended in an even more outrageous accent, face contorting as he tried different vocalizations and enunciations. “It sort of makes you talk through your nose. Maybe that’s why they always seem to look down at you - it just can’t be helped if you want to speak British.”

Graves struggled not to pinch the bridge of his own nose. “Where are they now?”

“They were in Archives when I left. You know, this is really hard, boss. Do you think the British would have just as tough a time with American? Come to think of it, how did Grindelwald manage it all - do you suppose he had a translation spell he ran on all the reports he had to write? What if he slipped and said something with a British accent?” He gave a gasp of fake horror. “Maybe there’s a whole bunch of obliviated people wandering around, all because they asked him why he called a ‘trash can’ a ‘bin’ or why he spelled ‘curb’ with a ‘k’. Except, wait, he’s actually really German, isn’t he?”

“Rossi, I honestly don’t know what disturbs me more; that you are able to come up with so many words when your brain is so obviously not involved in the process, or the fact that I’m actually considering what you just said and am half convinced that there’s something to it. Impressions, now,” Graves ordered curtly before the Auror could squeeze in a retort. “Leave the entertainment for your written report when I can read it with a drink in hand. I want to know what they’re like _before_ I actually have to talk to them.”

Rossi laughed and complied as Graves led the way back to Archives, and this was why Graves put up with the man’s inanities and tomfoolery; because Rossi actually had filters that he could engage if he was given enough incentive, and the wheat without the chaff was golden.

Britain had sent nine senior Aurors with Scamander, so that Grindelwald would be guarded around the clock by three shifts of three in his passage back to Europe. He would have no less than two alert wands on him at all times, even if someone had to take a bathroom break.

Scamander’s second was Jonathon Scapplesworth, a generally quiet man next to his commander’s more dominating presence, dark-haired and slim with a serious gaze. Scapplesworth had been in the Great War too and received a line of commendations of his own, though he had not mentioned much of his involvement beyond having met Scamander only after the treaty had already been signed. The two seemed to have an easy relationship, moving through each other’s space and speech with long familiarity, though they did not presume to imply actual friendship; at least, not in public.

Someone who _did_ presume, however, was the eldest of the group; a witch named Hazel Figg with mouse-brown hair already liberally streaked with iron. The merry spray of crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes couldn’t hide a keen, thoughtful gaze, and she had a cultivated, matronly air that didn’t bother acknowledging social or personal boundaries on the excuse of age and experience. The others tended to bow to her will with an air of patient tolerance, but even Scamander tended to stop and listen when she voiced an opinion.

The youngest was an Indian woman named Chameli Roy Chowdhury, with a round face, a long black braid, and a solemn air. Something foreign would occasionally shade her words if she was distracted, but in all other respects, she seemed perfectly British. Perhaps, as the most junior, she felt a need to compensate for her relative lack of experience with a particularly serious mien; she tended to reside on the sidelines, quiet but attentive.

In between was a mix of men and women who all carried themselves with the air of seasoned veterans. They were all known personally to Scamander, though some came from shared experiences in the war while the others came from after, in the Auror corps. If the Aurors had not known each other before the escort had been assembled, it was not noticeable in casual environs. A few days on the ocean liner had apparently been more than enough for them to figure out where they fit with each other, at least under social circumstances.

It was as thorough a verbal report as could be given with just a half-day’s observation and a five minute walk to fit it in, and Rossi timed it perfectly so that as they made the final approach to Archives, he wrapped up with the off-hand comment, oh, by the way, with the exception of a Rupert Muir, the British Aurors had never been to New York City. So, over the weekend, they had one and all voted to abandon the spelled accommodations the British Ministry had sent with them and summarily moved themselves into a few suites of a no-maj hotel.

Graves came to a stop so suddenly that Rossi continued by two steps and several words before pausing as well. “A no-maj hotel,” Graves repeated flatly. “You mean that we have allowed them to do _exactly_ what I had promised the president I would _not_ let them do?”

Rossi spread his hands with a helpless air. “You said to keep them fat, happy, and distracted! What’s more distracting than New York City?”

“That was not - “ Graves stopped, took a deep breath, and growled, “I did not say that - “

“Turner said that, actually.”

“ - and you are never to quote her in the hearing of either Picquery or the British. Or anyone else, for that matter. And she is most assuredly not to quote herself. Ever.” Exhaling in exasperation as he retrieved his original train of thought, he demanded, “Could someone not have at least directed them to any of the numerous MACUSA-approved wizarding hotels we have listed for tourists and visiting dignitaries?”

Another hapless shrug. “They said they don’t have anything taller than eight stories in London besides the church, and this particular hotel had a view of the Met Life Tower. They’re practically mooning over the skyline every night and we haven’t had any new calls to Obliviate no-majs in that precinct after they moved in. Shaw already gave them all the grisly details of Rappaport’s Law and they seem to be behaving themselves. What more can we do?”

Graves covered his eyes with a hand, but had to admit that under normal circumstances and with ordinary citizens, this would have hardly constituted a footnote in a report, much less an actual offense. As much as they were all sworn to uphold the tenets of Rappaport’s Law, it was an unspoken understanding that it was impractical to enforce to the literal letter, not without isolating the wizarding world completely. He knew numerous people in his own department who rented from no-maj landlords, and even MACUSA was headquartered inside one of New York City’s tallest and busiest commercial no-maj buildings. All of them were guilty of rubbing elbows with no-majs on nearly a daily basis, even if it was just to buy a cup of coffee or to hail a cab if, for whatever reason, apparition was not an option.

Or, quite simply, for the thrill of the ride. Graves was wearily reminded that, with the year’s end approaching, he could look forward to another local spike in Obliviations soon. With the late widespread establishment of gasoline taxi fleets in the city, inebriated wizards and witches looking for new experiences to ring in the new year had resulted in far fewer instances of splinching in the last decade. But large swaths of obviously intoxicated fares during no-maj Prohibition also meant more questions than the DMLE really wanted to deal with, requiring a judicious, if frequent application of magic throughout the night of New Year’s Eve.

Dropping his hand, he pinned Rossi with a narrowed look and asked, “Fine. At least tell me that they actually are fat, happy, and distracted?”

Rossi pursed his lips, rocked back on his heels as he visibly mulled over possible responses, and finally ventured, “At least two out of three? In some cases?”

Graves let his glare linger, just to show how unhappy he was with the whole affair, before resuming his stride with sharp, aggrieved steps. “At that rate of return, I certainly hope it’s not MACUSA funds that are paying for those hotel suites. If you’re just going to be useless, go and help Goldstein; I don’t pay you for your wit.”

“Happily, Sir,” Rossi declared with a sloppy salute and spun smartly in the opposite direction.

“Or your fraternization!” Graves snapped without breaking stride, waiting until the sound of the man’s footsteps had faded behind him before giving in to a soft snort. As exasperating as Rossi was sometimes, Graves was self-aware enough to admit that, this time, the distraction had been necessary and timely.

Feeling a little less locked inside his own head than before, he gave a tug on the edges of vest and jacket sleeves to straighten non-existent wrinkles, filled his lungs with a deep breath, and waved the tall, bronze-strapped doors of Archives open.

* * *

The British did, indeed, look politely bored.

Archives seemed, perhaps, little more than a glorified library on the surface. The same architect that had laid out Evidence had most likely also laid a heavy hand on the design of MACUSA’s central records-keeping. It too was circular, and for all Graves knew, it sat right atop the vaulting reaches of Evidence and shared the same circumference of walls, though the magic that folded MACUSA into the Woolworth sometimes made exact positioning between rooms tricky. It was well known that there was a quirk of the 13th floor that sometimes led the inattentive or the uninformed to accidentally fall back into no-maj territory; it was reliable enough that it was still occasionally used as a rite of initiation or hazing ritual for new recruits. Office gossip had it that the no-majs have developed some sort of superstition regarding the floor; Graves cared little for it beyond that the no-majs have conveniently distanced themselves from the troublesome spot which meant fewer Obliviations necessary when the inevitable mishap occurred.

But the Archives possessed a subtle magic that was impressive in its own right; something different from the rest of MACUSA, something indigenous. The Archives were rumored to have existed even before MACUSA was established; a repository of the genealogy and doings of wizards and witches in America, outstripped only by Ilvermorny’s library, which dated back to the Mayflower. No matter how much was entered, Archives never ran out of space even though the room was easily encompassed by a single glance, and nothing was ever lost. Things hid and folded themselves neatly away, an elegant piece of spellwork that was oddly quiet and organic amidst the glittering, grinding, clockwork edifices of modern structures.

The towering stacks which stored everything from histories to reports to personnel records were arranged in concentric rings, each level dipping down toward a central atrium. It was an accidental labyrinth, for the room was ever-shifting; depending on an entrant’s needs or requests, individual shelves, stacks, or even entire rings would shuffle themselves around to disgorge materials from wherever they had been stored. Graves suspected that several papers and perhaps even an academic career or two had been established in studying the spellwork that governed how it all worked; as far as he knew, the core magic had never been touched over the centuries, only the decor updated.

But, it usually provided long-term fascination only for the academics. Even Shaw, who was giving a lecture on one of the busts lining the empty space at the room’s center, looked disengaged from his own speech. Turner, looking even more obviously bored, had posted herself behind the small herd of visiting Aurors, carefully keeping them all in her field of view.

Graves wended his way down the terraced stacks, circling around so that he would emerge from their shadows at the group’s back. Shaw, spying him first, perked up like a scenting hound, but Graves quickly signaled with a flick of his fingers that the Auror should carry on. The Irishman visibly deflated even as his steady drone never stuttered.

Several heads turned at the tell, however, to glance in Graves’ direction, and then swiveled with eerie synchronicity toward Scamander next. In a disturbing mirror, the man too gave a hand signal, and the British Aurors obediently turned their attentions back to Shaw - some with a less-than-subtle slump of the shoulders - as Scamander circled the group unhurriedly to come to Graves’ side, just out of easy earshot of the rest.

In the photos that Graves had examined in his file, Newton Scamander had been so unassuming with his perpetual hunch and indirect gaze that it was easy to forget he had some height to him. Graves was unaccountably disgruntled to discover that Newton’s brother had two or three inches over him, now that they were standing side by side rather than at wand’s length.

“Finally decided to stop hiding, Director?” Scamander murmured with all appearances of good cheer as he turned to face the same direction as Graves, hands clasped loosely behind his back.

“Do you always like to shake every tree you pass to see what falls out?” Graves returned levelly, voice pitched to the same volume. “It makes one wonder how often you’ve had things fall on your head with that strategy.”

Scamander chuckled, smile filled with just a few too many teeth. “I learned the hard way that sometimes it’s better to poke a stick in the hole when the timing’s right for me, rather than wait till when the timing’s right for whatever’s lurking inside.”

“The war is over, Scamander,” Graves pointed out dryly. “And last I heard, the US and Great Britain were allies.”

“Indeed. I’ve had good cause to be grateful to several of your compatriots, magical and muggle both,” Scamander agreed easily enough, and just as easily added, “But sometimes no amount of good intentions makes up for the fact that someone may have overreached their limits. As fascinating as New York is, we would be just as happy back in Britain as I’m sure you would be to see us there. Why don’t you just give us what we want and we’ll be out of your hair?”

“What, Grindelwald?” Graves’ eyes slid toward the man, one brow lifted. “My job?”

Scamander met his sideways gaze with a thin smile. “I said what _we_ want. Not what _I_ want.”

“Nice to know there is a difference. And just why are you personally so hell-bent on removing me?” Graves asked, not caring to moderate the irritation from his tone anymore. “For the sake of your brother? By all reports, he had done quite well for himself in the end. Does he really need you to come charging in on a white horse to avenge his honor?”

That, at least, seemed to have finally hit a nerve as storm-blue eyes narrowed. “The fact that he managed to take care of himself does not mean that he should have had to take matters into his own hands in the first place - “

“Your brother had more contraband in that suitcase of his than we’ve impounded in the three months previous,” Graves snapped, his temper slipping altogether, “not to mention the half dozen infractions against Rappaport’s Law he caused in a single night! He’s lucky he managed to contribute something in the end or you could have arrived just in time to pick him up from holding.“

“Oh, that’s rich!” Scamander snorted. “You Americans managed to get yourselves taken over by a dark wizard for months and didn’t even know it! Not until the British citizen your asinine system nearly allowed to be executed on the sole word of an imposter had to shove your bloody noses in it!”

“And who was responsible for said dark wizard? If we’re going to start pointing fingers, how long has he been allowed to run amok in Europe by now - a good twenty years at least? Departed Durmstrang with a slap on the wrist … befriended by one of your most powerful wizards … brainwashing your youth and inciting riots and murders and threatening all of wizardkind with exposure - “

“Mind your words, Graves,” Scamander growled, “your job is not the only one being called into question.”

“Picquery can take care of herself,” Graves retorted even as he hoped desperately he wasn’t lying, and in a moment of inspiration, further distanced himself with a sour, “I don’t doubt she’s well aware of the albatross I’ve hung about her neck.”

Scamander was popular. Not just in the news, but _in person._ Graves had _seen_ it, in the way his people had turned so automatically toward him for cues; there was no hesitation as to who led them, no hesitation as to whom they would follow. He was handsome, he had presence, he had a heroic history, he had connections and knew how people worked and how to work them. And if he decided that Graves was as much of a problem as Grindelwald … people would listen.

Graves was beginning to realize that he might be in very real trouble with Scamander as a political enemy ... and right now, while there was very little he could do for himself, he could at least try and disengage his reputation from Seraphina’s, because his increasingly unreliable temper had slipped its leash at the worst time and even if he wasn’t becoming nauseatingly aware of the example he was setting for his own Aurors, the British were now casting slant-eyed looks toward the building argument ...

“Sir?”

Graves startled at the softly hissed honorific. Suddenly realizing that he was as tensed as if he was awaiting - or readying - a physical attack, he released a tight breath through his nose upon noticing Goldstein hovering within the first row of stacks. When a flick of her eyes indicated she would like him to join her, he valiantly smoothed his scowl as he glanced back at Scamander. “Until the next round, perhaps? It seems I still have a job to do ... at least for the moment.”

Scamander’s mouth twitched humorlessly. “By all means, do your job … that’s all I’ve asked for.”

Graves barely acknowledged the dig with a narrowing of his eyes before swiftly striding over to join Goldstein in the shadow between two towering cases. Mentally running through a quick Occlumens exercise in an attempt to clear his riled emotions, he asked with what he hoped was admirable neutrality, “What is it?”

“Sorry to interrupt, Sir,” she murmured as she held out two folded sheets of paper. “But one’s from the president’s office and was labeled urgent, but you’ve made yourself untraceable, so the pigeons couldn’t find you. The other’s not urgent but I brought it along too because … well, you’ll see.”

Graves opened the latter first, his frown deepening as he scanned the few lines handwritten on the paper.

It was a transcription from the Auror that was the current guard duty captain. A finely worded request from one dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, asking for a face-to-face meeting with the director of magical security, Percival Graves, at his convenience. A postscript from the duty captain added that, thus far, Grindelwald had unsurprisingly resisted all efforts at interrogation, but could possibly be more informative if given an interview with the director.

Graves’ lip curled and he unceremoniously thrust the page back at Goldstein with a brusk, “Denied,” before moving on to the page with the president’s seal embossed at its top.

_From: Office of the President, Magical Congress of the United States of America_

_To: Percival Graves, Director, Department of Magical Law Enforcement_

_Percival,_

_I received the last response this morning. Three out of five have indicated that they are available for a ceremony tonight. The rest we will simply have to make a special accommodation for. I will trust you to make the proper arrangements for receiving our guests and …._

Graves released a long breath as he skimmed the rest of the missive from Seraphina, feeling his shoulders unknot. It warmed him to see that she had made the effort to come through on this so quickly after their shared coffee break, even in the midst of wrestling with the ICW.

But even in success, he felt a low clench of apprehension in his belly. This was not a duty that he looked forward to, no matter what closure it would bring.

“Goldstein,” he said as he carefully re-folded the letter.

Something in his voice made the woman snap to attention. “Sir?”

“Do you have clothes appropriate for a dress ceremony tonight?”

She blinked, hesitated, and then finally gave a slow nod. “Uhm, yes, Sir. What’s this for?”

He took a moment to ponder his choices, then reeled off, “Shaw. Turner. Rossi. Donaldson. Kent. Bryans. And find a dozen others, I don’t much care who, just as long as they are able to make themselves presentable in full formal dress by six tonight. I will brief you all at the same time in half an hour. I apologize if you originally had plans, but this matter will most likely take up most of the evening.”

She looked more taken aback by his apology than the mysterious nature of the task, but nodded readily enough. “Of course, it’s not a problem. This sounds like something important.”

Graves’ fingers tightened on the letter, crinkling the paper. “More so to some than others, but yes, it is important. Thank you.”

* * *

The empty tiers rose to either side, made distant by shadows. The room was built to hold all the delegates of the ICW when necessary, but tonight, the light only picked out the dais and the MACUSA banners behind it and the pentagram inscribed into the floor. Ceremonial candles hovered at discreet distances, highlighting the two rows of solemn-faced men and women standing at attention on either side of the floor; all smartly dressed in blacks and whites, their duty hats tipped low.

Before the throne-like seat upon the dais, Seraphina Pickery stood in full court regalia, robes and headress gleaming. To her left was the presidential aide, a young man with a homely face but an elegant bearing, along with a secretary who bore a draped tray in her hands.

Graves stood to the president’s right, fighting not to curl his fingers into fists. His suit was his uniform and as comfortable as years of service could make it, but in just the short time in which he’d begun the habit of wearing gloves at all hours, he felt oddly bare and exposed without them now. The skin over the stump of his finger itched incessantly.

Three separate groups had been led into the hall, and they now stood timid and quiet amidst all the ceremony. The Harts were an old couple, leaning into each other, the wife with her hand tucked into her husband’s elbow, his hand covering hers comfortingly. The Burns were composed of a middle-aged man and two women, all sharing features with each other, dressed in simple but carefully pressed suits and dresses. The McMullens were represented by an old woman who looked gaunt with illness, supported by her daughter, a diffident looking young lady whose eyes flicked frequently between the lines of Aurors and the pentagram beneath their feet.

Seraphina took a breath when all were arranged, and then stated with all the gravity of her position, “We are gathered here tonight to honor those fallen in the line of duty. An Auror is often called upon to sacrifice much in the name of duty - long hours, missed commitments. Sometimes, even, their life.

“New information has come to light recently as to the circumstances that led to the deaths of William Hart, Daniel McMullen, and Marvin Burns; information that has led to the Director of Magical Law Enforcement’s recommendation, and my confirmation, of their deserving honors for the intelligence, bravery, and moral fortitude that led them to discern and confront the evil that had been in our midst. Frank and Isobelle Hart, would you please step forward … “

Seraphina and her staff stepped down to meet the old couple. The aide turned to the secretary and neatly uncovered the tray to reveal a line of ribbons and medals - the colors bright and rich amidst the somber attires, metals gleaming with the thinnest sheen of magic that would keep them always-bright.

Isobelle was silent as she came up to meet them, but already had a steady trail of tears lining her weathered cheeks. Frank simply looked worn and weary.

Graves’ job was simply to watch for now, as the honors were passed to mother and father, to brother and sisters. The Aurors standing honor guard may as well have been statues; eyes focused on a remote point just over the heads of their opposite line, barely a blink to prove that they were actual living bodies.

Seraphina carried the ceremony with the finesse of a master statesman; just enough words to convey the depth and sincerity of MACUSA’s gratitude for each of their sons’ service without becoming boring or overbearing, a press of fingers to imply a personal investment without being over-familiar. The men’s expressions were heavy and all the women teary-eyed by the end, except for the matriarch of the McMullens … the woman had her mouth pressed into a thin, bloodless line, shoulders curled into a pained hunch, but her eyes were dry.

“ … MACUSA and the safety of all wizardkind owe much to the men and women who have sworn themselves into service of the Auror corps. The names of your sons and brothers will be remembered forever in monument, alongside all of their fellow Aurors who have passed with honor, up to and including the Original Twelve,” Seraphina concluded with a formal bow, followed by her staff, Graves, and all the Aurors in attendance. There was a muted sound of surprise from some of the civilians as they glanced over the display, before several dipped their heads also in hesitant mimicry.

With the conclusion of the ceremony, Graves stepped down to join the president on the floor. Goldstein, Shaw, Turner, and Rossi broke ranks to flank him; it had not been prearranged, but for all Graves’ curiosity, he had no chance to do more than cast a suspicious glance over his shoulder before he had reached the knot of people at the room’s center.

Seraphina turned to face him. She did not say anything; merely reached out, her expression soft, to squeeze his shoulder lightly. He nodded, hoping that his own face did not betray his anxiety, and then she was sweeping from the room, her personal guard breaking off from the honor guard to escort her from the room.

Graves took a deep breath and reached out to take Isobelle Hart’s hand. “Madam, I know that nothing can compare to what you have lost, but I wish to tell you that - “

He offered them the personal words that he couldn’t at the funeral he had missed. Goldstein and Rossi helped to keep the other families occupied while he took the time to say what William Hart was as an Auror and a personal friend. His own voice was thick by the end, and Isobelle had started crying anew, but when he finished she wrapped her hands carefully around him and gave him a brief hug while Frank shook his hand. Another pair of the honor guard peeled off to guide the Harts out.

The Burns were a little easier, only in the sense that they had not pinned all their love and hopes on an only child. Marvin Burns had been the youngest, and all the siblings had their own families to lean on. The brother shook Graves’ hand, thanking him solemnly for his words and the memories of their brother, and then he gathered his sisters and they too left.

Graves had left the McMullens last, and from the unblinking stare that had been pinned upon him for the majority of the time he had spoken with the others, Mrs. Innis McMullen knew exactly why. Rossi and Goldstein had fallen back behind Graves once more, uncertain and uncomfortable in the face of the matriarch’s strange regard, and Graves made a subtle motion for the others to fall back as he girded himself with a deep breath and finally approached this final labor.

“Madam,” he began, but then found himself faltering, uncertain how to proceed. To cover his awkward grope for words, he held out a hand, and when she politely placed hers in it, he covered it with his other and bowed over it in formal apology. “Daniel McMullen was very bright and very talented … I had earmarked him for - “

“Did you lose this to him?”

Graves stuttered to a halt, straightening to find that she had turned his right hand over in her own withered grip so that the missing finger was clear to see. “Yes,” he belatedly answered.

“Was it all you lost to him?”

Graves felt as if the air had been squeezed from his lungs. “Yes,” he repeated heavily.

She dropped his hand. Graves was more than a fair legilimens, but he had not needed to invoke it during the ceremony to tell that she had no forgiveness for him. And it was now plain for all to see as she sneered, “You should have lost more.”

“Ma’am!” The shocked exclamation came from Goldstein, half-scandalized, half-defensive.

Innis’ hard gaze flicked toward the other woman before pinning itself back on Graves. “How long had that beast held you for? Two months? Three months? How many secrets does your mind hold, and how many did he pry out of you?”

“Mother,” the daughter whispered, fearful and uncertain, tugging on the arm looped over hers. “Please, don’t … “

“What did that beast find that led him to my Danny? To the Harts boy? To Burns?” the woman’s voice rose, frail but buoyed by righteousness.

“Ma’am, we know that this is very difficult for you, but please consider your words, this isn’t - “ Shaw tried to placate.

“You cannot just give me this piece of metal and pretty ribbon in place of my son and say that all is done!” Innis flung the award to the ground, and Graves felt his heart jump in his chest at the bright, tinny sound of it as if it were gunfire. “You should have been in his place! Maybe if you had died, they wouldn’t have died instead! Has no one asked how much damage _you_ caused MACUSA?”

 _“Enough!”_ The word echoed in the space, and in the numb paralysis that seemed to have gripped him, Graves felt a distant surprise that it was Turner who had stepped forward, her sharp features stony. “You’re disgracing your son and all he swore himself to with these baseless accusations. He gave his oath - as we all have, _including_ Director Graves - to give his life if necessary for the good of MACUSA and wizardkind, and he did so, in the highest of services. You would rather make him some helpless victim to find a scapegoat?”

“Is that so?” The matriarch turned on Graves, visibly trembling, face bloodlessly white but for two feverish spots of color high on her cheeks. “Then why had _you_ not given your life in service to wizardkind?” She bared yellowed, crooked teeth; as vicious as any carnivore even with them worn down to stumps. “You should have taken it out of that beast’s hands in the first week!”

Before Turner could more than suck in an angry breath, the daughter abruptly stepped between them, capturing both the matriarch’s hands. “Mother, please, your health - “ she pleaded desperately, casting a single, terrified look over her shoulder at them before focusing once more upon her mother’s face. “You know what the matron said … you can’t excite yourself like this … “

“What does it matter if I fall over dead now with Danny gone - “

“Mother, _please_ \- “

It was another sort of tragedy, to see the daughter brushed off in such a manner. But Innis had finally turned away, head bowed and muttering to herself, and her daughter looked resigned - and, perhaps, even a little relieved - rather than mournful over her apparent position as afterthought in her parent’s world.

While Innis shuffled out, the daughter glanced back. Goldstein had quietly gathered the discarded award, and after a moment’s hesitation, the daughter scurried over to take it, quickly tucking it out of sight. As she passed Graves on her way to follow her mother, she paused, hand pressed tight over the pocket in which her brother’s medal rested. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, eyes refusing to meet his, before the scuff of her shoes rapidly retreated out the door.

There was a long, cold silence that followed. Distantly, Graves realized that his hands were shaking; his fingers, his palms, his lips, all tingled as if he had not enough air. There was a pressure in his chest, in his head, that seemed to push out all thought and emotion.

“Sir - “

He held up a hand, the movement feeling slow and torpid. He didn’t know who had spoken, but it didn’t matter. The silence held as he walked slowly from the hall, until he had passed out of MACUSA’s doors and the disapparition barrier.

He thought he would have felt grateful, if he had been able to feel anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did so much research for the details of this chapter that never even went into the chapter, you don't even know. But I now know a lot more about the world's tallest buildings in the 1920's, presidential and congressional awards, and the history of NYC taxicabs. Yay involuntary edumication \o/ And in trying to avoid writing I accidentally figured out how the rest of this fic will finish (and so many <3s to winzler for the help!) not to mention planted a lot more seeds in this chapter for later developments that I probably wouldn't have gotten to if I'd been more productive. Also, it took me 14 days to come up with 11 pages and then I managed to suddenly blast out 5 pages in 4 hours' worth of inspiration. Life's full of surprises \o\ \o/ /o/


	6. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It took a moment for him to register that it was a no-maj paper, rather than the _Ghost_. It had already been creased to feature the article in question prominently: _FATHER OF MURDERED SENATOR SEEKS JUSTICE: “My son’s death was no accident - I will not rest until those responsible are found!” Shaw Sr. vows_
> 
> Graves straightened as his stomach did an unpleasant roll. “The one person that we needed to forget everything, and _he’s_ the one to remember?” he snapped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg, thank you all so much for reading and all the comments and kudos! I bounce in my seat at each one, I swear I do!
> 
> So, I'm slower now cuz I picked up a second job. Also the house has basically half-drowned in the biggest Winter deluge of the decade. I also distracted myself by imagining scenes that won't be happening for another half dozen chapters at least and omg it was like having a song on repeat in my head until I finally just got it down on paper and out of the way.
> 
> But here, have almost 5 more pages of words than I usually do! And still no Theseus (yet). :( Sorry. BUT I PROMISE HE IS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER A LOT OF THESEUS I ALREADY HAVE IT HALF-PLANNED AND ALL OF THIS IS GOING SOMEWHERE I SWEAR #evenslowerbuildthanexpected
> 
> OH OH AND ALSO whatistigerbalm has been sending me pictures of what these non-canon characters should look like and they've been PUSHING ALL MY BUTTONS - go take a look, I've linked them at the bottom! Squee!

A drink - or several - had seemed like the most natural conclusion to the day. The motions were a comfortable rhythm; the clink of a single ice cube, a splash of amber liquid, the slide of fire down his throat. Repeat.

The Dreamless Sleep Potion had also seemed like a logical prophylactic. Between the two, when he finally made it to bed, he was fairly certain he was asleep in the time it took for him to start tipping over and his head to hit the pillow.

Between the two, he was also up again at a pre-dawn hour, trying to turn his stomach inside out into the toilet. He tried to remember if Philomena had mentioned any injunctions against taking alcohol with the Dreamless Sleep Potion, before deciding that his head pounded too much for him to consider retaliatory actions even if she hadn’t.

The remaining hours till morning were spent lying fruitlessly in the dark, feeling as if he had been wrung thin as a rag, limp and gray, so desperate for sleep that he could almost cry. When the wan morning light finally began tapping against his eyelids, he felt such dread for the string of tasks and decisions that had to occur before he even stepped into the office that he rolled over, refusing to face the inexorable creep of the sun.

Surely things could wait for one day. After all, they had waited for all the time that Grindelwald had held him … perhaps another few months wouldn’t be missed either.

Except someone would tell Seraphina he had disappeared again. And the department would lose complete faith in him rather than just the part that Grindelwald had stolen. And the British were still camped on their metaphorical doorstep, and there was the wall-eyed bastard sitting locked in the bottom of MACUSA, asking him for a chat like they were just going to get together for an afternoon tea. And Goldstein - Goldstein had a worrying history of simply bursting into rooms without a by-your-leave when she felt she had the right of something, and she now had the clearance level to dig up where he lived …

Rubbing at eyes that felt scratchy and swollen even under their lids, Graves groaned and levered himself to his feet, trying to remember the most convenient apparition point for the apothecary.

If he was going to go through all the trouble of making Scamander _work_ for the privilege of kicking him out, he was going to take all the help he could get.

* * *

It was Graves’ second cup of coffee that he carried into MACUSA with him, liberally laced with whatever potions there were for headaches, upset stomachs, and lack of sleep. To be honest, it didn’t much taste, smell, or even look like coffee anymore, but he hardly noticed as he took his usual path to his private office on the giddy prop of artificial energy.

His gaze did an awkward dance over the department as he passed through, trying to take in the general mood without meeting anyone’s eyes. He had a vague recollection that there had still been a few honor guard left when he had summarily abandoned the chamber last night, but he couldn’t remember who they had been. Office gossip was notorious for its efficiency, and while Innis McMullen’s accusations had been circumstantial, they had not been without a certain logic. In fact, the only reason why Graves hadn’t wholeheartedly agreed with her himself was because a legilimens had walked through the memories with him during his debriefing - as much to help him sort out the morass as to verify what he reported - and there had been nothing obvious that supported such claims.

But it was thin reassurance. Memory was a frighteningly malleable thing where magic was concerned. In the end, what had allowed the president to reinstate him with a minimum of fuss was that Graves’ memories held nothing of either use or indictment where Gellert Grindelwald was concerned. Their source - whether true experience or planted by the dark wizard - had simply been unverifiable, and none could retrieve or even really confirm what might have been Obliviated.

It gave Graves that uncomfortably slim - possibly imaginary - margin of reassurance that he had probably not been the main source of information on the DMLE’s vulnerabilities. Grindelwald hardly seemed the sort to hide that sort of scandal in consideration of a prisoner’s sensibilities.

Graves’ surreptitious sweep raised nothing conclusive. There was tension that he thought was new - different - from when he had first returned and no one had been certain yet how to treat him. There were, perhaps, a few more sidelong looks that were carefully blank rather than openly conflicted. The background drone felt oddly _clumped_ , as if people had gathered into schoolyard cliques, their conversations huddled.

It was beginning to become difficult to tell what was a result of Graves himself, or a result of Graves’ actions. He had been very busy moving people around, and while there had yet to be any suspensions or detainments, no doubt everyone thought that those would be coming soon.

Which led to yet another point of concern. He thought he would have seen some notices of resignation, extended leave, or even a last minute request for a vacation by now. Perhaps even reports of someone simply gone missing - fled.

Yet none of the rats were jumping ship after Grindelwald had been captured - there had been only two new sick notices and a leave for a birth - and it made him worry that the reason was because they didn’t think the ship was sinking yet. Even with Grindelwald in a holding cell, whatever help he had planted in MACUSA were simply biding their time rather than escaping before Graves found them.

What were they waiting for? Did they think they wouldn’t - couldn’t - be found? Or did Grindelwald’s reach extend past his guards somehow? Or perhaps they thought their chances were better if they kept their heads down, rather than giving Graves a clear rabbit to chase, even with a head start … or had something else been planned and they were simply waiting for the right time to act?

His suspicions chased each other endlessly through the fog in his mind with no clear beginning or end. As he reached his office, he breathed deep and ran through a basic Occlumency exercise in an attempt to clear his head; after all, the room was no longer the sanctum that it had once been. Grimacing as he thought of what Goldstein and Turner’s possible reactions might be after last night’s fiasco, he rolled his shoulders back and resolutely pushed the door open.

Goldstein looked up from where she was seated at her desk, half-rising with a predictably concerned look, but a reasonably normal, “Good morning, Sir.” Rossi, half-perched upon a corner of Turner’s desk, tapped the brim of his hat in salute, the dark felt still beaded with dewdrops from the early morning drizzle. Turner didn’t even bother glancing up from the two fistfulls of memos she was sorting until Graves had already crossed to his own desk, brushing the moisture off his scarf and coat as he hung both up.

“I ordered the Aurors that had still been present last night to keep their mouths shut.”

Graves felt his brows shoot upwards as he turned to meet the woman’s black gaze. “Good morning,” he said measuredly. “And was it Merlin’s own wrath you threatened them with? Because I’m somewhat doubtful that anything less will manage to keep last night out of the gossip pool.”

Turner’s mouth set into a rather forbidding line. “Three of them I know very well and the fourth is junior enough to be cowed. They know I can make their professional _and_ personal lives miserable, and I made it clear that it’s in the best interests of the DMLE to maintain a strong front, especially since we’re currently hosting foreign ‘guests’.”

Graves blinked. He had expected awkwardly sympathetic queries this morning, or at least a forced appearance of normalcy; not reports of ultimatums that had been delivered in his stead. “That’s … impressive.”

“I like impressive,” Rossi said so smoothly, it was a full second before Turner registered the intent behind the words and turned a withering look upon him. He looked as pleased with himself as a first year schoolboy with his antics.

Graves snorted. “Perhaps I should give my job to you,” he remarked as he picked up his cup again to take a fortifying sip.

Turner visibly hesitated; not exactly contrite, but conscious of a possible misstep. “Sir, if you feel I have overstepped my authority, I can - “

Graves waved the matter away even as he noted her choice of wording - if _he_ felt she had overstepped, not that _she_ felt that way. It was obvious she had no shortage of confidence; something that was dangerous if she didn’t have an accurate measure of herself. But only time would prove whether she was right or wrong in that. “No, it’s fine, thank you,” he said wearily as he sank into his chair. “While I’m usually a proponent of treating the problem rather than the symptom, sometimes discretion is the only thing that lets everyone walk away with all limbs more or less intact.“ He trailed off distractedly when Goldstein handed him a folded newspaper.

“Sorry to add to what looks like a rough night, boss,” Rossi spoke up this time, face set in much more sober lines, “but speaking of discretion, it looks like we’re gonna need a lot more of it pretty soon.”

It took a moment for him to register that it was a no-maj paper, rather than the _Ghost_ . It had already been creased to feature the article in question prominently: _FATHER OF MURDERED SENATOR SEEKS JUSTICE: “My son’s death was no accident - I will not rest until those responsible are found!” Shaw Sr. vows_

Graves straightened as his stomach did an unpleasant roll. “The _one_ person that we needed to forget everything, and _he’s_ the one to remember?” he snapped.

Rossi spread his hands, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know that he actually _remembers_. He has … suspicions. Theories. The death of his son - his favorite one - and a senator at that … it’s a little hard to just sweep it all under a rug.”

“He’s not the only one,” Goldstein added quickly. “There’s been disputes, fights … they’re much smaller, but there’s been some other articles, in the back, about the sudden jump in arguments over contracts, promises, work orders, even feuds between friends … people are beginning to ask what’s happening to the city.”

“Those were inevitable. We couldn’t very well visit every single no-maj citizen in New York City or review every business transaction to smooth over the loss of that much time. It’s just going to have to play itself out,” Graves growled, slapping the paper down on his desk. When his stomach gave another queasy pitch, he automatically reached for the dregs of his coffee - but instead of lukewarm ceramic, his hand encountered a rotund little pastry with golden baked skin and incongruous currant eyes.

“Breakfast,” Goldstein declared with a hopeful-looking smile when he stared at it.

Graves stared at her in turn before being forced to dismiss it for the time being to finish glowering at Rossi. “I didn’t expect it to be swept under a rug, I expected it to be glossed over! How many gas explosions have we had to pull out of our collective rears - “ his eyes narrowed warningly when the man looked ready to pounce on the unfortunate choice of words, and Rossi hastily closed his mouth with a _click_ , “ - in the last three months, and we couldn’t figure out a convenient fire for his son to have died in? Who was assigned to check on him post-Obliviation?”

“Darren Mink and Penelope Wong,” Turner answered promptly.

Graves frowned, tapping a finger against the newspaper as he tried to recall the names. “Wong’s one of our top interrogators. What’s she doing on the Obliviation circuit? And who’s Mink?”

“It was all hands on deck immediately after the Obliviation event. President’s orders. Mink was recently promoted from junior status.”

“So Wong was senior agent in the field. If I recall correctly, she’s one of our most accomplished legilimens,” Graves began darkly.

Goldstein was already wincing. Rossi looked like he was bracing himself against doing the same, and Turner had her grimly stolid face on.

When there was no convenient rationalization from the three Aurors, he finally growled, “By Isolde’s wand, how did _she_ of all people let something like _this_ escape her? And how is it that we had no oversight on the father of a high-profile obscurus victim and owner of a major no-maj publication, until _this_ \- “ he slapped a hand over the paper, making Goldstein jump, “ - became a headliner?”

In the awkward silence that followed, Graves belatedly remembered that all the Aurors present had probably still been lost in whatever dreg work Grindelwald had exiled them to at the time. The only exception might have been Goldstein since she had been reinstated first by the president, but she had hardly the experience or position to have made any difference on the matter.

In which case, the follow-up had probably been his responsibility.

Except he had thought he would have time to catch up to ongoing events. Had thought that re-securing the DMLE and MACUSA from the inside was the top priority.

Deflating with a long sigh and feeling vaguely foolish, he covered his eyes with a hand, trying to rub the gritty feeling from them. “Where’s Shaw? _Our_ Shaw.”

“Babysitting the Brits,” Turner reported.

Yet another topic that made Graves’ stomach spasm. Too tired to demand where his adulterated coffee had vanished to, he absently picked up the pastry. “We need another arrangement where the British are concerned. At this rate, they’re as much of a liability as Grindelwald’s agents, tying up our resources like this.”

“I had a thought,” Turner continued, “that we could have them join patrols.” When Graves’ eyes shot toward her, she added coolly, “As senior Aurors all of them, they have collectively well over a century’s worth of experience between them. Experience that should be passed on, and, as a gesture of international cooperation - “

“Instead of us babysitting them, they can babysit the juniors!” Rossi crowed, earning himself a peeved look from the woman for the interruption.

“Excellent,” Graves cut in before Turner could snipe back. “Turner, you’re in charge of making the arrangements. Let’s spread them out a bit - a pair to each squad. No doubt they’ll exchange observations when they’re all back at their hotel, but at least while on shift, they won’t be all stewing together like they are now. Considering your performance after last night’s ... ‘incident’, I’ll trust you to know what to brief the squads on and how they’re supposed to behave.

“Rossi, I want you and Shaw on this,” he stabbed a finger into the abused newsprint. “Put that mind of his on figuring a way out of this, and you work on getting yourself into Henry Shaw’s good graces.”

As they nodded and filed out, Graves said, “Goldstein.”

“Sir,” the woman came to attention.

Graves let his eyes fall eloquently to the few crumbs that remained upon the square napkin on his desk. The buttery scent still lingered in the air and he had to admit that his stomach felt slightly better for it, even if he still had no real appetite. “What was it that I just ate?”

She visibly considered and discarded several possible responses before venturing, “A niffler?”

Proof that she had excellent instincts. “A niffler. A magical creature. And where did you get a pastry in the shape of a niffler?”

She rocked back slightly onto her heels, blinking rapidly, hands clasping themselves behind her back, but not before he saw the nervous curl of her fingers.

Excellent instincts, but still some ways to go yet on the acting. “Oh, uhm, my sister. Queenie. She likes to cook. Bake. Things to eat.”

Graves was baffled as to why Goldstein was so skittish on the topic, but took pity after a moment and simply declared, “It was delicious. Please thank her for me. With a sample like that, she might consider starting a business on it.”

This time, she met his gaze a little too directly with a smile just a little too bright. “Oh. That’s really kind of you, Sir. Thank you, I’ll let her know.”

Graves hesitated, wondering if he should call her out on her nervousness. But then, deciding that he had had enough surprises for the morning, he simply nodded and began to turn his attention to the latest stack of letters ...

Then she cleared her throat.

“Is there another paper you need to show me?” he asked dryly without looking up. “If so, I would kindly ask if you can space them out through the day. I find I still need some time to recover from the last one.”

An embarrassed shuffle. “Ah, no, Sir. This is personal - I mean,” she backtracked, “I wondered what you were doing for Thanksgiving?”

Taking a deep breath, he leaned back in his seat, once again giving her his full, if perplexed, attention. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re asking me for a date. If you don’t mind, perhaps simply skip to the conclusion … ?”

She flushed. “Oh! No no no, Queenie - uhm, she and I, we just thought you’d might like to have dinner with us. It will be very small and private. Nothing fancy. Except for the food.“

Graves blinked. That … was not what he had been expecting. “As flattered as I am by the invitation,” he said slowly, “surely there are other friends or associates you would be more comfortable celebrating with than your immediate superior?”

Goldstein blinked as if the thought had never occurred to her, and then she brushed the suggestion aside with a flap of her hand. “Oh, we don’t usually have people over, we’re used to it just being the two of us. I mean, we don’t _need_ extra company. We just thought, with all the holidays coming, that it would be … nice. To have somewhere to go. For some company. If you didn’t already have any planned … ” she trailed off with a vaguely embarrassed air in the face of his continued silence.

It wasn’t as if he had never received an invitation to a colleague’s holiday party before; Seraphina alone was a reliable source of them whenever he chose to stay in New York during festivities. But, it would be the first truly _personal_ invitation in a while; where he would attend as Percival Graves, and not as Director of magical security.

It reminded him that he probably couldn’t blame _all_ of Grindelwald’s successful masquerade on the dark wizard’s uncanny targeting of key personnel alone.

“Do you need a response now?” he asked carefully.

“Oh, no, no need,” she replied, perking up. “Queenie always cooks enough for ten people. You don’t even have to decide until Thanksgiving day.”

He nodded. “Then, thank you. Truly. I will let you know.”

* * *

Penelope Wong was not quite petite, but was still obviously shorter than the office average. Her records indicated that she had immigrated to America under the care of her witch grandmother, just a little less than a year before she was eligible for acceptance into Ilvermorny. The timing had probably not been coincidental.

Graduating near the top of her class, she had been recruited straight out of school, and while she had shown only mediocre talent at dueling and field skills, she had proven somewhat of a prodigy at the magics that relied more on strategy and thinking than reaction time and instinct. At twenty-four, she was not the youngest to have made the rank of Quisitor, First-Class, but she was certainly nudging up against the envelope. The appearance of even more youthful years than her true age that Asian ancestry granted her probably made it even more incongruous when she took the interviewer’s seat opposite some of their toughest criminals.

For all her time in American wizarding society, Wong still retained the quiet, careful poise of a native-born oriental, hair long and braided neatly over her shoulder in the common manner of the Chinese. Her English was flawless, though, as she dipped her head politely upon entering his office and greeted, “Director Graves. You asked for me?”

Graves had not had much direct contact with the woman; he mostly knew her by the series of promotions he had signed off on through the years and the reports that had crossed his desk with her signature as the assigned interrogator. Waving her into one of the guest chairs, he finished writing a last note, switched out the file for another folder, and then laced his hands over the latter without opening it. “Miss Wong. I hear that you were the one responsible for checking in on Henry Shaw after the Obliviation event.”

Her back straightened a little with concern, but all she said was, “Yes, Sir.”

He smiled thinly. It was questionable whether her reticence was innate, or was born of a profession where every word could be weighed for its strategic value. “There appears to be a problem,” he stated with equal reserve, waving the no-maj newspaper from where it had been stacked with the rest of the morning’s paper detritus and into the woman’s hands.

It didn’t take long. Wong’s eyes widened, and she alternately paled and then flushed as she looked up quickly. “Sir, I … I don’t know what happened. When I visited him, the Obliviation seemed to have worked - “

“And how did you smooth over the transitional period?”

She looked dazedly down at the newsprint as if searching for the answer there, even while knowing that it wasn’t. “I … left it very open. He had just lost his preferred heir, someone he had a lot of investment in. I thought it would be better if he interpreted the lack of details as coming from his shock and grief, rather than … Sir, _implanting_ memories is not my specialty. _Extracting_ them is.”

“Perhaps not your specialty by practice, but you have the aptitude, as your file states,” he pressed, letting his voice flatten. “You should have been more than competent enough to have bridged Henry Shaw’s memories flawlessly. In fact, it’s probably why you were assigned the role even though you’re not a regular field agent - “

“I thought it was the best method!” Wong insisted, strident, the article crinkling in her grip. “Sir, in my experience … in my experience, dealing with people, with other sentient species, when you give them the barest outline, their mind tends to fill it in. Better than when you try to give them details; they can tell what doesn’t belong, and they reject it. But when you give the right hints, they can’t help it, they fill in what they expect - “

“And maybe Henry Shaw filled in exactly what he wanted - that there had been a conspiracy against his son, rather than his son having expired due to a set of unfortunate but blameless circumstances,” Graves interrupted harshly.

Wong’s eyes snapped up to his, and she swallowed before offering shakily, “Sir, I swear, everything had seemed fine, I don’t know what happened. I visited him again, a few days later - he seemed to have accepted his son’s passing as an accident. I would offer to have my memories reviewed under Legilimens, but … “

But such a review would be a waste of time performed on a witch whose specialty lay in mind magics. While being an occlumens did not always go hand in hand with being a legilimens, for such an accomplished witch as Wong, there would be no way to guarantee she was not simply laying a clever deception for her fellow legilimens. “Indeed,” he said grimly. “So, we have a disaster-in-the-making on our hands with no inkling as to how it happened, or how to prevent something similar from happening again.”

In the silence that followed, Wong looked like a rabbit frozen before a fox, not even daring to breathe. But when Graves continued staring steadily at her, waiting to see what she would do, she finally swallowed and spread her hands timidly. “I can try to fix this. I can go see him again - “

“I have already assigned two of my most senior Aurors to the case,” Graves stated unequivocally.

Her gaze dropped down to the article. She fiddled with the worn edges, smoothing it out upon her lap, movements rattled and nervous. “I don’t know what else I can do, then, Sir,” she whispered.

Graves leaned back, and took no satisfaction in her flinch when the chair creaked at the change in position. He wasn’t grilling her for the sake of punishment - for one thing, it still remained to be seen whether she really was at fault or not. But even Goldstein had not folded so thoroughly while under the full weight of the ICW’s judgment. “Tell me what it was like, in the weeks after Grindelwald was captured, but before I had returned.”

Wong glanced up, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I - I beg your pardon?”

“Tell me what it was like, here. After Grindelwald, before me,” he repeated patiently.

The woman’s brow furrowed and she pursed her lips, but even in her wariness, just the change of topic made her shoulders loosen slightly as she answered, “It was … chaotic. Everyone was uncertain about everything. Things we had taken for granted … we suddenly had to question them all, on every level.

“President Picquery ... I think she tried to keep us busy until things calmed down a little, until she could sort out a new hierarchy. But she also had to deal with the ICW’s inquiries, and our immediate chain of command had been uprooted by Grindelwald, and there were so many Obliviations to smooth over and New York bureaucracy keeps so many _records_ of _everything_ … “

“It was a high-stress situation,” he observed.

“Yes,” she declared with something like relief - before just as quickly catching on, and her mouth thinned. “You think that I made a mistake. Because of stress.”

“I think your reactions thus far proves that it's not outside the realm of possibility. Is it worse than my thinking you made a mistake due to incompetence or laziness?”

“I would rather it not be my mistake at all!” she blurted, then immediately blushed, winced, and dropped her gaze to her tangled fingers.

Graves exhaled and eyed the closed folder before him. After a brief debate, though, he decided to stick to his original plan, and flicked it across his desk with a finger. “Your next assignment.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion, but this time she kept her tongue as she exchanged the article for the folder and started perusing its contents.

His request for more information on the potential leak of Auror activities to a no-maj newspaper had been returned with the referenced case report. The Aurors that had been caught on photograph had been on simple clean-up duty - inspecting the site after a bust, making sure that nothing hinting at magic or the wizarding world had remained. Routine and innocuous, except for their suspiciously-timed sloppiness; with two of them on scene, one should have acted as lookout while the other worked. Even then, they should have had charms in place to avert the casual notice of no-majs.

A note attached to the report said that the two Aurors, questioned yesterday, swore that they had cast the charms as per standard procedure. Which, if true, meant that the no-maj - who just _happened_ to be a photographer - had been more than ‘casually’ interested in noticing something in that particular spot on that particular night.

“The photographer’s name is Henry Thompson,” he said when it looked like she was just about finished skimming the materials. “I want you to go question him. Find out how he knew where to be and what to look for.”

Looking uncertain - perhaps because she was ordinarily _given_ a subject to interrogate, rather than chased them down herself - Wong nevertheless rose from her seat and said gamely, “I’ll do my best, Sir. I’ll get to work on this right now, and let you - “

“Good,” he overrode as he pushed himself to his feet also. “Because I’m coming with you.”

“Sir?” she asked in surprise and, perhaps, a little bit of dismay.

“Consider this your performance review,” he drawled as he shrugged into his coat.

* * *

The problem with Wong was that she _should_ have had plenty of experience with stressful situations. She wasn’t dealing with the most accommodating of subjects in her interviews, after all; her appearance might have them badly underestimating her at the beginning, and if she played to it well, she might even be able to stretch it out for most of the session. But as a First-Class ranking, she would be getting the most difficult subjects to crack - the most canny or the most recalcitrant, or the ones that were suspected to know enough Occlumency to deceive interrogators with lesser power or experience.

Wong had - should have had - more than enough of both in her arsenal; but perhaps the difference was the situation in which she wielded them. In the interview room, all variables were under her control and she had a clear opponent - it was a game played out on a well-defined chessboard, in which she started with an unmistakable advantage, and practiced many times without variation.

But, throw her into the field, with minimal control and a subject who was not a clear antagonist, who was only a grieving father …

Or maybe she was not to blame at all, and something else was at work, just like what they were attempting to chase down now through a no-maj photographer ...

Or maybe she was covering for herself by playing Graves just as she might play her more obstinate subjects, letting them think her weak and inexperienced ...

Or maybe it really was inexperience. Perhaps he had promoted her too quickly, in spite of her track record on paper ...

All pure speculation at the moment, and as Graves emerged from the approved apparition point alongside Wong, he resolutely set them aside for the time being. Stepping out of the alley’s shadow and reorienting upon 31st, he turned to head toward Penn Station without a word. There was an awkward shuffle of flats upon the sidewalk, and then Wong belatedly fell into step beside him.

It had been a while since he had entered the field for such a relatively minor task, but he had promised the president he would treat the leaks as his top priority. No matter how good the report, there was still no substitute for collecting information firsthand. While he didn’t have high hopes of obtaining anything truly useful if the informant was reasonably intelligent about covering their tracks, perhaps his subconscious might still catch something, especially if further cases developed.

And by the Serpent, he _hoped_ there were no further cases - but he needed no augur to tell him it was a foolish sentiment at best.

“Thompson has been arriving on the 3:43 the last two days,” he murmured as they wove through the crowd of pedestrians, the flow of bodies growing thicker the closer they got to the rail station. “He buys himself a sandwich and a coffee on the first concourse, and gets the day’s gossip from the newsstand owner while he eats. Afterward, he checks in with his other informants, waiting until sunset. He likes to cover evening events.”

Graves fell silent as they approached the imposing facade of the station’s east entrance, guarded by a long line of Roman columns looming high overhead, pink granite dulled by shadow and accumulated years of commerce. The foot traffic was thick enough now that it nearly had them pressed shoulder-to-shoulder as commuters shuffled through the colonnade, funneled between brass banisters polished bright by the passage of thousands of hands.

The descending arcade funneled the sounds of shoes and conversation into the ribbed ceiling high above, multiplying them into a steady roar. It was two flights of stairs and a landing before the claustrophobic press of sound and bodies spilled out into the main waiting room … and then the crowd almost seemed to vanish, spread thin through one of the largest indoor spaces in the world.

Inspired by Roman ruins, built to the Pennsylvania Railroad president’s vision as “the entrance to one of the great metropolitan cities of the world”, the steel and plaster chamber had the vaulting, reverent air of a temple with its groined reaches and fluted columns. The wan sunlight that slanted through mullioned windows over a hundred feet overhead dripped through the room in soft, mellow sheets, and the harsh echoes that had so overwhelmed the arcade was little more than a background hum here.

In the past, Graves had sometimes wondered if it wasn’t just as magical, what no-majs accomplished with nothing but their hands and their ingenuity, following only the rules of the physical world. Today, though, he had eyes and thoughts only for their most immediate purpose. “Approach him and claim that you are the secretary to the owner of a major publication,” he continued now that they had the space to carry on more privately. “Say that your boss was intrigued by the claims behind the photograph, and wants to know if there are more photos, or if he can get more. I trust that you’re able to cast a wandless Legilimens by now?”

Wong nodded jerkily. “Yes, Sir,” she answered, voice thin with tension. “What if he asks which publication?”

Graves cast his mind over the list of more prominent newspapers in the city, and felt a certain vindictive amusement as he said, “Feel free to hint toward _Shaw News_.”

She cast him an incredulous look, but eventually nodded with a weakly repeated, “Yes, Sir.”

He stationed himself by the newsstand first, buying a paper from the bored, portly man perched upon a stool behind the chest-high racks. Leaning against a nearby column, Graves pretended to become engrossed in his purchase. When Thompson showed up promptly at 3:57 pm, bearing his sack lunch and an extra coffee for the newsman, Graves waited until he saw Wong approaching from the other direction before he tapped his ear and murmured a simple charm to augment his range of hearing.

“ - the missus again. Screamin’ and shoutin’, plates bein’ broke.“

“Macy’s must make a good living off of what they’ve got to replace all the time,” Thompson snorted, washing down a mouthful of sandwich with a gulp of coffee. “Any clue on who the mistress is?”

The newsman shrugged expansively. “Eh, too new yet. If it ain’t for the housekeep - “

“She must make a pretty penny too, what with the bribes from the husband to keep it quiet, and the wife to get her to blab, and anyone else - “

“Excuse me, Mr. Thompson?” Wong’s interruption was diffident, her hands clasped demurely before her. “May I have a moment of your time?”

The two men glanced toward her and then at each other. The newsman smirked and waved Thompson off. “Listen t’that, ‘Mr. Thompson’. Well, when a doll asks for your time, you don’t say no.”

“‘Specially if the alternative’s an ugly mutt like you,” Thompson retorted, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth to brush off any remaining crumbs and straightening into a modicum of presentability. “What can I help you with, Miss?”

Wong made a show of hesitating, looking about before motioning for the photographer to follow her. Graves shifted his position to keep them in his line of sight, but remained relaxed and outwardly disinterested as they came to a stop in the shadow of another pillar.

“Mr. Thompson,” Wong began, her manner earnest, gaze beseeching, just a hint of an accent slipping into her words, “my employer is the owner of a major publication in New York, and he gave me a very important assignment … ”

In Graves’ opinion, he thought playing the damsel-in-need a little over the top for such a simple and ordinary request. But Wong seemed to know what she was doing, and it certainly gave her the necessary eye-contact for a discreetly murmured Legilimens - Thompson, rail thin and dressed in rough wool that was too wide at the shoulders and too short at the hems, puffed out his chest and hitched his belt up and tipped his hat back as he matched her gaze, hooked.

Graves played lookout during the short exchange, flicking his eyes back to the pair every so often to take in the man’s body language and expression.

Wong’s line of questioning was short but thorough, strategically nudging the man into recalling all of his communications with his source - recollections that she could skim without alerting him that there was anything more unusual than his own thoughts in his head. Graves was mollified that she at least appeared to deserve her position on paper - it seemed that the lack had been in her experience outside of the rote environment of the office.

As predicted, the photographer had little information to divulge. Eager to secure a potentially guaranteed line of lucrative jobs, the man tried to hint that his reticence was only because he was protecting his source’s anonymity. However, Graves could tell from Wong’s responses that he was most likely lying - she had gleaned nothing useful from the dips she made into Thompson’s surface memories.

As the line of questioning began to peter out, Graves pushed away from his post. He folded his paper, casting a look-away charm over the general area from behind the newsprint as he started ambling their way. Wong’s eyes flicked toward him, and she slipped her wand out. Thompson trailed off mid-sentence in confusion.

That was where any association they had with one Henry Thompson should have ended. A quick Obliviation, a few sideways steps, and Thompson should have carried on with his afternoon routine, none-the-wiser. Wong and he should have then walked back to the disapparition point, and Graves could finally get the coffee he had been craving since the top of the hour.

Except that Wong had raised her wand and then inexplicably frozen, staring at the man. Thompson actually had time to look between the wand and her, had the time to ask, “What’s that?” and then to even follow up a heartbeat later with, “What’re you doing?”

Graves was close to snarling it himself as he lengthened his strides, hoping that he wasn’t attracting the very attention his charm had sought to push away. Rolling his wand into his paper, he swiped it through the air as if swatting at a fly.

Thompson was just beginning to frown, sliding a step back, opening his mouth for a demand that would undoubtedly be much more attention-catching, when the Confundus hit him and he listed sideways. Wong blinked and latched onto his sleeve to tug him back upright.

It was just enough time for Graves to finally reach them. _“Obliviate,”_ he hissed, all but rapping his wand-and-paper into the side of Thompson’s head as he implanted the crudest suggestion that the man needed to find the nearest restroom.

As the photographer staggered off, Graves rounded on her and demanded, _“What was that?”_

Wong flinched and huddled into herself, gaze dropping to her feet like a truant child as her shoulders hunched.

When the silence stretched, Graves hissed, “Not even an excuse?”

She shook her head minutely, but in the same moment whispered, “I - I couldn’t.”

He tried to be patient. Waited, until it became apparent that she would not follow the declaration with an actual explanation, and then snapped, “This is not Ilvermorny, Miss Wong, where you get a detention and house points docked. The consequences could affect MACUSA, your permanent record, all of - “

He stuttered when a suspiciously stifled sniffle escaped her. Feeling an entirely different dread begin to creep over him, he tried to continue, “ - all of your recent judgments could come under review, and - “

This time, a definite sniffle, and her shoulders were hitching.

Helplessly, he said with far less conviction than he intended, “I will not be manipulated by - “

“I’m sorry, Sir,” she mumbled thickly, a hand darting up to brush at eyes hidden by her downturned face. “I didn’t mean to - I’m sorry, it’s just … I can’t help … “

Grimacing, he involuntarily glanced around - for help or for witnesses, he wasn’t quite sure himself - before fishing out a handkerchief. “Miss Wong, as sympathetic as I am, this does not reflect well on you. Either your lack of willingness to Obliviate the man, or your ability to hold up under pressure. Your position carries responsibilities that could affect MACUSA at the highest levels.”

“I know,” she whispered miserably, taking the square and scrubbing at her eyes and nose. “Sir, I … I don’t know what to say.”

Feeling awkward and oddly unqualified, Graves reached out and tried to give her a consoling squeeze on the shoulder. “At least tell me why you would not Obliviate Thompson. There’s obviously something that’s affecting you greatly about it.”

She blew her nose, swallowed audibly, but then confided in a dull voice, “My grandmother. She raised me. I had some contact with my parents, and they sent money for all our necessities, but … but my grandmother was the one who was actually here whenever I needed someone. She cooked for me when I was home, helped me shop for my clothes and my wand. She was the one who handed me presents on my birthday and on the Lunar New Year. It’s just been the two of us, for almost as long as I could remember.

“But last year … things started to change. She became more and more forgetful … she had laughed at how old she was getting, how silly her mind was becoming. At first it was funny, but then it became inconvenient. And now ...

“Now, it's just frightening. She would forget the water boiling on the stove until the water was gone and the pot was ruined. She would repeat herself many times through the day, the same thing, over and over again. One time, she became so confused, she did not know how to get back home.

“And then one day, when I returned from work, she stared at me for a very long time. When I asked her what was wrong, she suddenly laughed and hugged me. I asked her, ‘ _Lao lao_ , what is it? What is so funny?’”

Wong raised her head, met Graves’ eyes for just a heartbeat with her own red-rimmed and wet, before she glanced aside. “She said, ‘It was strange, for a moment there, I did not recognize you. Isn’t that very funny? How could I forget you, my _bao bao_?’”

It took a moment for Graves to make the connection. “It’s like she’s being Obliviated,” he murmured.

“Yes," Wong said miserably. "Every month. Every week. I am told it is a disease that old people get, sometimes. There is no cure; they can only stop it for a short time, but then it always gets worse. It is like her memory is a bowl that is constantly cracking; they cannot fix it all. And even if they could - they cannot save what has already spilled out. 

"I have to watch over her now, more and more, as if _she_ was the child. And every day, I am afraid to go home, wondering if she will stare at me like I am a stranger.”

Graves sighed as he tried to gather his thoughts, then began slowly, “You’re hereby placed on mandatory leave.” As she further wilted, he added more gently, “With pay, though you should have had the sense to let your immediate superior know before it got to this point. I will schedule a review in two weeks to determine if you’re to be reinstated, or transferred to another position according to your capability and desires.”

She winced, but when there was no further reaction, he pressed more sternly, “Is this acceptable?”

She immediately bowed her head. “Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

* * *

When Graves finally returned to his office, feeling every minute of the previous night’s lost sleep, amongst the fresh stack of incoming missives on his desk was another secondhand invitation from MACUSA’s involuntary guest.

He took special relish in practicing his non-verbal Diffindo upon it, until the pieces were so small that the last application of the severing charm accidentally gouged his desk instead.

* * *

Earlier in the day, Graves had communicated to the president’s office that he needed to consult with Picquery on a matter of some time sensitivity, but that it could wait until the next day if absolutely necessary. He had received a response that she would drop by his office after business hours.

It was a good hour-and-a-half after the end of the business day before his door was finally pushed open. He already had two tumblers set on his desk along with a flask of a European no-maj brandy he had taken a liking to while on an official visit years ago. It seemed as good a time to polish it off as any, particularly considering the look on Seraphina’s face as she closed the door on her guards and slumped into the seat opposite him, all her usual grace fled.

Graves was a fan of delivering bad news quickly; in his experience, nothing good ever came of mincing around unpleasantness except to draw out the torture. “I’m assuming you’ve been informed of the Henry Shaw affair,” he said as he set aside the reports he had been attempting to analyze and poured.

Seraphina paused in the act of kicking off her shoes, leveling a flat look upon him before finishing the wand motion that would conjure a footstool. “Why, yes,” she stated bitingly, her tone at odds with the expression of relief on her face as she propped her feet up. “At great length, from Honored Congressman Theodore Whitmann.”

Graves winced; Old Man Whitmann could have been around since the Salem Witch Trials with the way he carried on about his age and experience, and was one of the loudest banner-bearers of MACUSA’s protectionist policies. There was an unofficial betting pool amongst the congressional staff - of which no few congressmembers themselves were rumored to be in on - as to when the man would finally keel over. “I’m truly sorry, Seraphina. I can only take full responsibility, and tell you that I’ve made that and any other leaks to the press my top priority right now.”

She accepted her share of the brandy with a dour look, but after a sniff and a cautious sip, she grudgingly relaxed into the embrace of the chair, rolling her neck. “Good. At least you’re not doing something useless like offering me your resignation.”

“If that would help - “

“I would fire you in a heartbeat.” A bit of spark returned as she smirked over the edge of her glass before she added soberly, “But beggars can’t be choosers, and right now, I’m begging, Percival. What can you give me to work with?”

“Not much,” Graves admitted. “Yet.”

He had poured another round for them both by the time he finished recounting the day’s events - minus Wong’s performance and her subsequent breakdown - and fielded the typical slew of incisive questions. They even spent some time going over strategies to mollify Congress - meager as those may be at the moment while they were still in the investigative phase - before they both lapsed into a brooding, but not wholly uncomfortable silence.

Seraphina was gazing abstractly down at her feet - toes curling and uncurling as she flexed the stiffness from them - and he was just reaching for the decanter again when she abruptly said, “I heard from Goldstein about what happened last night. With the McMullens, after I left.”

The glass rang sharply as he misjudged his aim, pouring his tumbler half full. “Goldstein again,” he snipped, disgruntled. “She might have a second career as a reporter, at this rate.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Seraphina admonished with narrowed eyes. “You have the looks of someone who could use a few more people to look after you.”

He leaned back with drink in hand, but found his stomach abruptly roiling on the verge of nausea. “Thank you, but I’ll kindly remind you that I already have a mother that’s still alive and well. And did you put Goldstein up to the Thanksgiving dinner invitation also?”

She arched one elegant brow. “She invited you to Thanksgiving dinner? I’ll count my blessings, then; maybe there’s someone I can finally hand off the care and feeding of one Percival Graves to. Especially since I wager you will not be visiting said mother this holiday.”

Usually, his mother and sister would each send an invitation. As it turned out, those had arrived while Grindelwald had been in residence, and the man had already sent his regrets in Graves’ stead.

Graves had found he wasn’t much inclined to change the response. As Seraphina had intuited, he was rather grateful, actually, that he wouldn’t be forced to try and recount the last few months to them; at least, not while everything was still so raw.

“You leave my mother out of this,” he joked with little vigor, wetting his lips before setting the glass aside, finding that he couldn’t stomach anymore in his current mood.

Seraphina sighed, not taking his bait into shallower waters. “Percival, regardless of what you may or may not remember, I _know_ you did more to try and protect MACUSA than anyone could have expected. You’re one of the most stubborn idiots that I know of.”

He snorted, one side of his mouth curling with bitter, fey humor. “Too stubborn to die at the right time?”

She set her feet down and straightened with a level stare. “Are you thinking of then, or now?”

He thought about giving her the flippant answer; perhaps debated it for just a shade too long. Her expression had started tipping into true anger before he shook his head quickly. “Neither,” he answered with rough honesty, scrubbing his hand over his face and feeling as if the entire wretched, sleepless night had come crashing down on him all at once. “My apologies. It never even occurred to me until Mrs. McMullen said - well. Just - no. No, it had never occurred to me.”

“Good.” A faint creak from the chair heralded her getting back to her feet; to his surprise, he found his hand taken from where it had been shading his eyes. “Because that’s who I want as my head of magical law enforcement - someone who will fight, rather than take the path that is the easiest or the most pat.”

“Even if it’s to a bitter and unreasonable end?” he asked sardonically.

“Especially then,” she sniffed imperiously, peeling the thin covering off his hand. His fingers automatically twitched at the cool air, but her grip firmed to prevent them from curling into his palm. “You hide this like it’s a weakness,” she observed, as casual with his dignity as ever, running the pad of her thumb over the stump.

He couldn’t stop his full-body shudder at the sensation. The scar itself didn’t have much feeling, but some days, especially when he was distracted and the glove was on, he swore that the finger was still there. It was beyond disturbing to feel anything else ghosting through the same space. “It’s an embarrassment, is what it is,” he retorted gruffly. “Just enough to throw off my wandwork without impairing it, and not even a courageous or particularly exciting tale to go with it.”

“Why don’t you tell it to me and let me be the judge of that?” she said, dropping his hand with that slyly winsome smile she pulls out when she’s getting ready to charm some official into her way of things. “I assure you that my opinions are quite representative of the majority of women with good taste.”

He snorted, eyeing her with patented suspicion as he drew the glove back on. “I think we would need something a lot stronger than brandy to make it worth your time.”

“That can be arranged,” she called his bluff, gaze pointed though she didn’t let her carefully friendly smile falter. “It would only be a wand-flick away.”

_Don’t do that again._

_Next time, I might take something much more substantial._

He curled his hands carefully over the ends of the armrests, swallowed down the hot curl of shame that always arose at the choice he had made, and said quietly, “It’s fine, Seraphina. I just - it just needs time.”

She had the grace not to argue with him, letting it go with a long, if somewhat disappointed sigh. He scrambled for another topic. “When do you meet with the ICW again?”

She grimaced, and in a gross abuse of the quality of drink, tossed the remainder of her brandy back in one swallow. “Brandon managed to cobble together enough bureaucratic formalities and minutiae to delay it till after Thanksgiving,” she groused, setting the tumbler down with a definitive _clack_ and slipping her feet back into her shoes. “I’m hoping that if we can drag it out by two more sessions, anything truly decisive will have to be put off till after the holidays.”

Everything started shutting down by mid-December unless there was an emergency session … and Grindelwald was already captured. The emergency was over.

Graves could read between the lines. “So I need to have everything in hand by New Year’s.”

“By Christmas.” Seraphina banished the footstool and gave him a wry look. “You should get a chance to enjoy some time off too.”

“Only if you lead by example,” he retorted as he moved to open the door for her.

“Deal,” she said as she passed, even as their gazes met with the understanding that they will both probably fall short of the expectation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go look up the Penn Station. It was an architectural marvel of its time - the largest indoor space in NYC, and one of the largest in the world, modeled after the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. Its demolition raised such an outcry that it was credited with kickstarting the landmarks and architectural preservations movement in America. 
> 
> Now have some Rossi:  
> 
> 
> And here, have some Theseus:  
> 


	7. 'Tis Folly to be Wise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t test my patience,” Graves warned quietly, and the whispers abruptly fell silent, “or the president’s orders. This is bigger than petty power plays.”
> 
> But, instead of the defensive retort Graves was fishing for, the district chief’s gaze flashed with self-righteousness. “If I must sacrifice my position and reputation for the sake of MACUSA’s security, then so be it. If you’re not willing to ask the hard questions, I will.”
> 
> With a prickle of cold sweat, Graves abruptly realized how politically vulnerable he had become if the district chief was bold enough to make a public play now. While he was ostensibly Weiss-Capeton’s superior and had the power to demote or dismiss a district chief at his discretion, after the past few months’ slew of embarrassments, everyone knew that doing so short of an actual crime having been committed would cast more doubt on Graves than on Weiss-Capeton ... and the man was taking shameless advantage of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies!! Thank you all for hanging in there with me!
> 
> I am so excited, witness all my exclamation marks!!!! I'm leading up to some scenes that I've had mapped out in my head from literally since the beginning of this year. It might take two chapters instead of one, but I'm almost there.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is reading and commenting and kudos'ing and I hope you enjoy in spite of All The Talking in this chapter /o\ But I promise that it's all leading somewhere! But finally, next chapter, THESEUS! And WIZARD DUELS! And then ALL THE STUFF HAPPENS \o/

“Thank you for coming today, ladies and gentlemen, especially on such short notice. I’ll try to keep this to the essentials; we all have very busy schedules these days.”

In front of Graves was arrayed some forty to fifty of the most senior members of MLE’s New England and nearby territories. Combined with MACUSA’s resident senior staff, they filled over half of the bench seats in the lecture hall. Graves himself stood next to the empty lectern, while on either side stood Rossi, Shaw, Turner, and Goldstein.

The non-field disciplines had instinctively clustered themselves to one side, largely dressed in administrative-wear but for the occasional white flag of labcoats. The no-maj practice had crept in somewhere around the turn of the century and had been making steady inroads as a badge of office - even as each member swore up and down at every administrative review that the coats were purely utilitarian.

The rest of the audience was composed of Aurors, both current and past; men and women who had not only achieved senior status for quite some time, but also had command experience. Some were the heads of their own districts and territories, while the rest were some of MLE’s top operatives on the eastern seaboard.

“As you all know,” Graves continued, “we’ve been busy at HQ these last few weeks cataloging and reversing as much of Grindelwald’s influence as possible - “

“And has there been any progress made on how he managed to gain such influence in the first place?”

Graves deliberately paused before casting a measured look toward the interruption. Luther Weiss-Capeton was the current chief of the Bostonian-Massachusetts district, and years ago had been a contender for the head of the DMLE until Graves’ appointment was confirmed by Congress. Also a descendent from one of the illustrious lines of the Original Twelve, Weiss-Capeton had made no effort to conceal his opinion that Congress had chosen the wrong man - but, at least, had thus far refrained from taking it beyond the occasional dig.

After recent events, however, that may not be staying true for much longer. “As much as I would like to be able to change facts after the matter,” Graves pointed out dryly, “I’m afraid that they are quite immutable, however inconvenient it might be for everyone.”

“Inconvenient for everyone except for - “

“Oh, won’t you stop beating that dead horse, Luther; even its poor ghost has passed on by this point,” Aurelia Smith of Philadelphia snapped. The oldest of the district chiefs in attendance, she was stately in a midnight-blue pantsuit, iron-gray hair coiffed so sleekly against her head that it appeared to be a cap molded to her skull. A seeming traditionalist down to her heirloom pearls, she delighted in scandalizing ‘fellow’ conservatives with her modern and outspoken manners. “We already went over all this during the inquiry, and as it’s still Graves standing up there and not you, I consider the matter settled.”

Weiss-Capeton’s expression pinched unpleasantly, but he doggedly continued, “Short of the president and vice president, Graves is arguably the largest repository of state secrets on the continent. Even if we’re to believe that Grindelwald had no interest in anything beyond the obscurus - “

“And, what, you’re going to train the current crop of newly-recruited pups to heel at Graves’ feet wherever he goes?” Smith rolled her eyes expressively. “At best, they could act as a distraction if there was any real threat.”

The man’s lip curled in disdain. “While reputation would have us believe that Graves’ wandwork is quite impressive, I think we have ample proof he’s already been defeated at least once in the near past.”

“And just how many dark lords are wandering around out there, do you think - ”

“Thank you both for your concern over my wellbeing,” Graves overrode the building squabble, irony weighting each syllable like stones, “but, as District Chief Smith has suggested, this is, perhaps, a matter for a separate discussion.” He paused with a hard look between the two, waiting to see if there would be any more interruptions, then continued, “Instead, as stated in the request for your attendance, this will be a chance for us all to bring high priority items to the table and ensure that our efforts are synchronized. MACUSA is currently under intense international scrutiny, and President Picquery has managed to buy us only a little over a month’s time to get our affairs under order. Let’s use that time wisely.

“First item on the agenda is the matter of Henry Shaw, Senior ... “

* * *

 

The day before the northeastern branches of MLE were due to converge on MACUSA, Graves summoned Shaw and Rossi to his office. He was glowering at the miniature of the threat level meter on his desk - currently with its needle stuck stubbornly on ‘Level 4: DANGER’, even after a half-hearted flick of his finger jogged it loose for a few seconds - when there was a diffident knock on his door. “Enter.”

The two came in without their suit jackets, and Shaw even had his shirtsleeves rolled up his forearms. Graves arched a brow at their appearance, since it seemed they had come from the office rather than the field, but quick-eyed and quick-tongued Rossi was the first to jump in with, “Is that an erumpent?”

Graves had to suppress an inexplicable and completely unnecessary urge to reach out and hide the pastry. “Miss Goldstein has been leaving me regular presents every morning,” he said as blandly as he could. “Or, ‘reminders’, as she likes to call them.”

“Reminders of what? That there are more things to life than case files and glowering?”

“I do not - “ Graves started, glowering, before catching himself and smoothing his expression with an effort. “Take a seat,” he ordered with barely leashed patience, “and for Merlin’s sake just take the damned thing so we can move on.”

“Thanks, Boss,” Rossi beamed as he scooped up the pastry and dropped into a seat.

Graves took a deep breath. “I know it’s only been three days, but I’m calling a high level meeting tomorrow to gauge how the past month’s revelations have affected the other offices of MLE, and I would like you to - “

He was forced to pause at an appreciative groan from Rossi, and both he and Shaw turned to stare at the man. Even Rossi seemed a little startled by his own reaction before he defended through a half-full mouth, “What, it’s good! It’s - it’s like eating something fresh from my nonna’s kitchen. If my nonna baked. Which, she doesn’t. At least, nothing like this.”

Shaw perked up. “I want a - “ he began, only to sink back with a self-conscious clearing of his throat at Graves’ glare. “Ah, right. You were saying, Sir?“

Graves sighed, then stared at Rossi pointedly. After the man caught on and broke off a bit of the jelly-filled erumpent for his partner, Graves drawled acerbically, “Are we done sharing with the class, boys? Good. Then, finally getting back to the topic at hand, I need to know what you’ve managed to find out and what actions, no matter how preliminary, you might suggest. We only have a little more than a month to not just work out a plan, but to implement it and see concrete results, and the sooner I can get the rest of the East Coast districts on board, the better.”

“Of course, Sir,” Shaw brushed off his fingertips, straightening conscientiously. “So, initially, we were wondering if Henry Shaw regained access to the Obliviated memories. There are some magical theories of thought that, rather than erasing them completely, Obliviation simply covers up the targeted memories, or tucks them in some inaccessible corner of the mind ... rather like sweeping some dust under a rug. If you expend enough effort, you might still recover it.”

“But that has never been done before,” Graves stated the obvious.

“It’s not been done before that we know of _yet_ ,” Shaw was quick to correct, before admitting, “and it hasn’t been done now. Instead, Henry Shaw’s memories have been tampered with - _after_ the Obliviation Event.”

Graves felt his stomach sink. If it was no accident or botched Obliviation, then someone was actively working toward exposing magic-kind - albeit in a curiously roundabout way. “Are you certain?”

Rossi shrugged, sucking a last bit of jelly from a fingertip. “Pretty certain. His secretary was most likely tampered with too. She told me he’s been inconsolable and calling everyone he knows up and down the coast since his son’s death. But her schedule books don’t show appointments until just about a week ago.”

“An absent-minded secretary prone to gossip is hardly proof that - “

“Also, I think I found a way to tell when false memories were implanted. And Henry Shaw sure has a lot of them from _after_ the Obliviation Event.”

Graves’ head swiveled so sharply toward an innocent-faced Shaw that he had to suppress a wince at the twinge in his neck. “Say that again?”

“I have a way of telling when memories were implanted.”

“You said you _thought_ you had a way.”

“Oh, he has a way,” Rossi assured, lacing his fingers across his middle as he slouched into his seat. “That’s why we were back here at home base, to run his method through the wringer. So far, he’s batting near a thousand.”

Graves didn’t know what ‘batting near a thousand’ was, but he could infer what the statistic meant from the Italian’s smug air. Graves, by contrast, was far from as sanguine. “And how are you able to do this?” he asked Shaw.

“Well, I think Grindelwald actually did me a favor,” the redhead declared cheerfully. “I learned a lot about the relevance of seemingly inconsequential physical and magical details while I was in Evidence. And the importance of repeatable procedures. You know, the no-majs have this new thing called ‘forensics’ that they’re trying to get to catch on in criminal investigations, and I think it’s - “

“Is this relevant, Mr. Shaw?”

“Absolutely!” the man insisted, before thinking twice at whatever expression had overtaken Graves’ face and temporizing, “But, uh, later. So ... as you know, memories have a material substance that’s manipulable by magic - for instance, they can be drawn out and stored, or returned or even altered.

“Up till now, wizards have only focused on the fact that memories have a physical form, they can be shared or transferred, and that’s about it that I can tell. You can create one in your head, and implant it in someone else. You can destroy or hide it, via an Obliviate. But no one’s actually taken a closer look at the medium itself ... and I’ve discovered that how a memory degrades or integrates over time can be an important clue to just how, well, ‘fresh’ it is. It even tells you whether it’s natural or not - how quickly it integrates and the pattern in which it does so is different between implanted memories and native memories; I guess because no one ever really quite thinks _exactly_ the same way.”

Graves stared. It was one thing to examine the condition of memories that they already categorically knew to be false ... but to also be able to sift out which ones were false after the fact, with no prior clues? And when it had happened? “You’re telling me,” he said slowly, “you found a way to not only tell which memories were implanted by a third party, but to pinpoint the time at which the procedure occurred?”

Shaw leaned forward in his seat. “Yes! Think of it as like ... like photographs. Or paintings. No-maj ones. They fade over time, right? And when they do, they fade everywhere, all together - the whole print at once. But that’s not how memories fade, not all of them, anyway. It’s like some colors use a special ink that don’t fade as quickly as others, or maybe something is blocking the sun and so only part of the print fades faster. There are details in memories that the mind selectively reinforces - something happy, something sad, something traumatic, or maybe even something that was confusing at the time, making the mind pick at the detail, trying to make it fit.

“Those things stand out while the rest starts to fade, or becomes jumbled up with other memories. The older the memory, the bigger the contrast. If you measure and compare the parts that have degraded with those that have been refreshed and reinforced by the mind, you can get an approximation of when those memories were created ... or implanted by a third party. Cross-correlate that with what the individual mind tends to - ”

Graves held up a hand, frowning. “This is beginning to sound more like an art than a science.”

“It’s replicable across multiple subjects!” Shaw assured quickly. “Reliable enough that, with time, I think a diagnostic spell can be crafted to make even training someone in the procedure unnecessary. That’s why I wanted to bring up forensics. It’s a field in which evidence is reviewed in a well-defined, procedural manner that can be taught to and repeated by others. Rather than relying solely on someone’s ability to argue before a jury, one can analyse and create incontrovertible proof that is evident to all, from even the most inconsequential clues that perpetrators wouldn’t think to - or can’t - hide. And it’s a knowledge that can be passed on via concrete rules so that you’re not relying solely on the quality of one person’s judgment.”

Graves shifted his weight to one hip as he eyed the man narrowly. “Are you trying to argue your method, or for a new department?”

Shaw pursed his lips, then ventured, “Both?”

“What he means, Boss,” Rossi rolled his eyes, “is that maybe we should start standardizing discoveries like this. Putting something in place that lets us capitalize on it as soon as possible, especially seeing as how current cases can use it.”

Graves let the point rest in silence for a moment before his attention swivelled back to Shaw. “And how accurately can you pin down the time of implantation?”

The Irishman tipped his head back and forth in a gesture of broad estimation. “The sooner I catch it, the more accurate the window. If it’s within the day? I can probably pin it down to within the quarter hour. A few days to a few weeks? I can narrow it to a window of a few hours to a few days. Years? Maybe down to the month. With more research, maybe I can shave off even more time.”

Nose wrinkling, Graves pointed out acerbically, “By this point, Henry Shaw’s false memories could be _weeks_ old. That means we’d have to investigate everyone who had access to him over the span of a few days ... and none of those will have been recent.”

“But it’s still more than what we had before,” Rossi interjected before Shaw could do more than draw himself up defensively. “If we even narrow it further by a single day, it’d make Legilimizing the staff for clues a hell of a lot easier.”

And a hell of a lot faster. Right now, their second greatest enemy was time.

Graves leaned heavily on one elbow, frowning at the two. Shaw looked expectant, as if his findings were already fact and would lead to inevitable results. Rossi merely returned the look with a heavy-lidded gaze, expression tempered by carefully contrived ambivalence. It reminded Graves that Shaw was the most recently promoted of the three senior Aurors; the Irishman had plenty of professional experience, but probably had little exposure to higher level politics up till now.

“Forensics,” Graves began, shaping the word carefully on his tongue, as if it were a new spell to be practiced. “It is a sort of ... discipline?”

Shaw nodded. “A magical forensics. A formal pursuit of techniques that one can use to detect and solve crimes. I’ve been reading up on several papers lately - there’ve been several notables in Europe who have applied it with - ”

Graves held up a hand quickly to halt the burgeoning lecture. “It is a no-maj concept, yes?”

Shaw hesitated, his enthusiasm beginning to dampen as he sensed the direction of things. “Yes. But, Sir - “

Grimacing, Graves interrupted, “It’s not up to me, Shaw. I’ll propose it - I’m willing to try anything, at this point - and I’m not the only one desperate. That might be enough to give this scheme more consideration than usual. But there are no guarantees, and I can assure you there will be a lot of pushback. As you well know, anti-no-maj sentiment this past year in particular has been paralleling the anti-immigrant opinions of the no-maj US Congress.”

Both Aurors before him grimaced as Shaw gave a lackluster, “Understood, Sir,” in acknowledgment.

Graves sighed, propping his head upon a fist, surreptitiously digging a knuckle into the ache that seemed to have made a permanent home at the base of his skull of late. “Can you teach Rossi how to do this?”

“Sure,” Shaw glanced toward his fellow Auror with an easy shrug. “I’m still trying to figure out all the details myself, but he’s already beginning to pick up the more obvious points.”

Graves breathed deep and forced himself to straighten. “Good. Then I’ll let you present this to the visiting MLE tomorrow. Keep the forensics thing to yourselves for now, though; I’ll take that up privately with the president later.

“So. Now that we have incontrovertible proof Henry Shaw has been set up to potentially blast the Statute of Secrecy out of the water ... what are we going to do about it?”

* * *

 

Graves let his gaze wander over his audience as he reviewed the current state of the case.

Most had on their professional masks; senior field operatives tended to learn impressive poker faces after long stints amongst no-majs. Either that, or impressively subtle Obliviation skills to compensate. The non-field divisions were a little more transparent with furrowed brows or openly curious expressions, but everyone remained politely quiet up until Graves was ready to introduce Shaw. “I tasked Senior Aurors Bernie Shaw and Frederico Rossi with investigating why Henry Shaw has retained his suspicions about the circumstances of his son’s death and how we can remedy the situation. Shaw, if you’ll - “

“Excuse me, Sir,” an agent still in full field gear called out, “but why’re we only learning ‘bout this now?” To his credit, he sounded more honestly baffled than accusatory. “That no-maj news article - it came only after Henry Shaw’s had at least a week to blab to everyone up and down the coast.“

“Maybe if you’d done your homework, Terry, you wouldn’t need to ask!” a heckler called from higher up in the stands.

“Shut your gob, Lance, some of us actually do work ‘round here,” Terry shot back, not even bothering to turn as he threw a vaguely rude gesture over his shoulder at what appeared to be a friendly rival, “or you forgettin’ we’ve still got the biggest case of body smugglin’ goin’ on since they abolished slavery?”

Internally grimacing, Graves held up a hand for their attention, “No, it was a fair question. What may not have been clear in your briefing packet was that the sheer scale of the Obliviation Event was beyond our ability to manage down to the individual no-maj, even with the help of whatever forces other districts could spare. There have been many incidents that have slipped by us, mostly inconsequential - “

“But of all people for you to forget to keep an eye on afterward ... “ Weiss-Capeton snorted.

“ - and though this is certainly the most high-profile case,” Graves talked over him with a frown of warning, “ - it is also one of two known cases of intentional sabotage.”

“Sabotage,” Amos Canterbury mused. The district chief of the DC territory was deceptively unassuming with his short, rounded stature topped by an equally rounded bowler hat. Little was publicly known about his career - by design - beyond a picture-perfect ascension through the ranks - at least on paper - but no one in the room underestimated the fact that Canterbury has held the longest tenure in the no-maj capitol out of all his predecessors. “From an unknown third party? Or Grindelwald’s followers? Certainly their actions would fit his ethos, but one assumes that MACUSA is not allowing the man free communication with them,” he noted with pointed smoothness.

“One assumes,” Graves echoed just as blandly, refusing to be baited into a defense. Canterbury was well known for his sparing but insightful remarks. He was also known for deliberately poking and prodding to see which way someone will jump when he wanted the measure of something.

“And how do we know it’s sabotage, and not an ineffective Obliviation or improper follow-up?” Weiss-Capeton interjected before Graves could continue, and handily gave him the opening to move the agenda along.

“As I was saying,” Graves stated, stepping back and motioning the Irishman over, “Shaw and Rossi were assigned to investigate, and Shaw has developed a technique that has not only been able to identify the false memories, but a timespan in which to search for the perpetrator.”

That predictably distracted the audience, murmurs sweeping through the room, but then one of the lab-coated figures abruptly leaned forward, squinting, as the Irishman took the lectern. “Wait, weren’t you in Evidence?”

“Uh, yes, I was one of the Grindelwald transfers,” Shaw admitted awkwardly, before brightening and tacking on with an enthusiastic jab of his finger, “But I was most appreciative of the experience! You see, I think there’s a missed opportunity right now between our departments that - “

Graves cleared his throat.

“ - that ... can wait until later,” Shaw coughed. “Getting back to Henry Shaw ... “

As Shaw fell comfortably into a lecturing rhythm, Graves watched silently from the side, cataloguing the audience’s visible reactions.

The dark-blond, mustachioed Weiss-Capeton was generally reserved in expression, but had never been shy in making his displeasure known. As the report progressed, though, the expected frown began to smooth out, and at one point, the gray-blue gaze even slid toward Graves, meeting his eyes with a speculative gleam that Graves didn’t trust.

By contrast, Smith, who had been so brazenly outspoken earlier, now looked suspicious and disbelieving, even if professionalism held her tongue for the moment.

She wasn’t the only one. Though Canterbury sat with hands folded neatly over his rotund belly with nary a wrinkle to mar his famously ambivalent mien, the faces of just about every other of the smaller precinct commissioners expressed some form of incredulity at some point. Graves was not familiar enough with the odd handful of individual agents that were present to know them all by name, but he could read the wary cant of their bodies well enough.

This was probably not doing his battered reputation any favors, but if Graves had been in this for the popularity contest, he would have resigned long ago.

“ - pinpoint it down to about one-and-a-half weeks after the Obliviation Event, or, just about after our last scheduled check-up on him. The timing itself is remarkable - it must have occurred right after the field agent visited him, otherwise they would have detected the tampering - which leads me to believe that our movements are being - “

“This is all very well and good,” Weiss-Capeton predictably interrupted, and Graves braced himself in anticipation of the coming argument. “But it seems that you’re basing all of this ... _conjecture_ on a potentially flawed premise. _Obliviate_ and memory charms are older than England, and you want me to believe that you’ve managed to find something new about how they work?”

“Mr. Shaw is an expert in unraveling riddles and spellwork,” Graves stretched the truth just slightly as he moved up to stand next to Shaw. “He was instrumental in solving the Mirrorwalker case, which report I highly recommend you read.”

“And I understand that all of this might be hard to swallow out of the gate,” Shaw added as he motioned for Turner and Rossi to step forward, “so I thought of giving a little demonstration to show how it works. Senior Auror Kali Turner has agreed to be the subject, and to show that these skills are transferrable, Mr. Rossi will - “

“And can we trust Miss Turner to be an impartial subject?”

It was a question he had not expected, and Graves frowned, wondering what the man’s angle was. But it was Turner who spoke up first, looking caught between suspicion and bemusement. “Impartial to what? It’s not as if my opinions or preferences can skew results - either this will work or it won’t.”

The district chief’s expression sharpened like a cat spotting the flutterings of a grounded bird. “Ah, but let’s consider the consequences,” he drew out pedantically with a spread of his hands. “If it does _not_ work, then you merely discredit a coworker’s ostentatious theory, and we end up doing a little more detective work - in truth, nothing more than what was already expected. However, if it _does_ work ... “ The man’s gaze slid back to Graves with sly speculation, “your superior might end up having to reveal a bit more than he wishes.”

There was a rustle of bodies shifting, a hiss of indrawn breath somewhere, but Graves’ attention was occupied solely by the fox-sly expression on the district chief’s face. “And what do you mean by that?” he asked, feeling the creak of leather between his fingers as they curled toward his palms.

“That we might want to take a closer look at your past experiences, if this method does prove effective in uncovering false memories and their origins.”

“And how is that relevant to the current matter at hand?” Graves snapped before he could remember that he had nothing to be defensive about, that even during the inquiry itself the reviewing members hadn't bothered to call for a Legilimens or Veritaserum.

“Well, we are speaking of schemes which potentially involve Grindelwald, aren’t we? A wizard whom, by all reports, we have been getting precious little out of ... and whose attitude has been rather more like someone taking an unexpected vacation than the incarcerated.”

Graves would dearly love to get his hands on whomever Weiss-Capeton had managed to bribe to leak those details, but then the man’s next words wiped all further conjectures right out of his head.

“Also,” the district chief drawled, “as you’ll recall, the inquiry only proved that you have unusually little to divulge for spending more than two months as Grindelwald’s guest. Aren't you curious as to how _much_ of that was fabricated, and _when_ that came to be?”

Smith made a sound of shocked disapproval. Even Canterbury rocked forward in his seat, thin brows lowered.

Graves was certain that if his hands were not already balled into fists, they would be shaking.

Weiss-Capeton’s revelation, even as seemingly innocuous and spare of details as it was, went against the spirit of the president’s seal that had locked the inquiry’s transcription into Archives. But the district chief hadn’t toed that line without premeditation - the intended results were clear in the uncomfortable shuffles, the sideways looks and questioning murmurs.

This was a room filled with some of the DMLE’s best and brightest; they readily connected the dots that had been laid out for them.

If Graves’ memories had been tampered with, as they most likely had been if he didn’t have enough to cover the time in which he’d been kidnapped, when had it happened? Throughout his imprisonment, as Grindelwald laid traps that needed more than simple Obliviations to cover? Or had more innocuous memories been laid down only after Grindelwald’s capture ... which meant that they were perhaps created by Graves himself. Maybe to hide something?

“Don’t test my patience,” Graves warned quietly, and the whispers abruptly fell silent, “or the president’s orders. This is bigger than petty power plays.”

But, instead of the defensive retort Graves was fishing for, the district chief’s gaze flashed with self-righteousness. “If I must sacrifice my position and reputation for the sake of MACUSA’s security, then so be it. If you’re not willing to ask the hard questions, I will.”

With a prickle of cold sweat, Graves abruptly realized how politically vulnerable he had become if the district chief was bold enough to make a public play now. While he was ostensibly Weiss-Capeton’s superior and had the power to demote or dismiss a district chief at his discretion, after the past few months’ slew of embarrassments, everyone knew that doing so short of an actual crime having been committed would cast more doubt on Graves than on Weiss-Capeton ... and the man was taking shameless advantage of it.

“Are you calling for the inquiry to be re-opened?”

Startled, Graves’ attention snapped, along with everyone else’s in the hall, toward Turner standing tall and bold in the center of the lecture floor.

Weiss-Capeton blinked, visibly taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said,” Turner advanced a single step, the scuff of her shoe loud in the frozen room, “are you calling for the inquiry to be re-opened?”

A sea of expectant faces swivelled back to Weiss-Capeton.

Graves’ eyes remained pinned upon Turner.

As mild as her question seemed, Turner was trying to force the district chief’s hand before he could maneuver into an even more damaging position ... and she was gambling Graves’ career on how much of his own neck Weiss-Capeton was willing to risk to hamstring Graves.

Graves’ jaw ached from biting back the urge to override Turner’s offer. Bad enough to allow it to stand; even worse to quell it. The last thing Graves needed right now was to appear as if his position was secured only with a heavy hand or that his officers needed reining in.

And as Weiss-Capeton continued to mull over the idea, Graves’ stomach twisted to consider that, if it had been he who had proposed it, the district chief might already be agreeing to what amounted to a vote of no-confidence. But the offer had come from someone else instead, someone unexpected ... and maybe Turner had saved him after all, as Weiss-Capeton eventually broke the stare-off to look around, gauging the mood of their silent audience.

It was a clear sign that the district chief hadn’t prepared to take that final step today. Perhaps today’s ploy had merely been opportunistic; Weiss-Capeton had grown bold, but he wasn’t completely sure of his own position yet. He could afford to wait until he was certain there wasn’t a trap laid in turn for him as well ... especially when time was on his side, not Graves’.

“No,” the district chief made a show of leaning back. “Of course not.”

Turner smiled grimly. “Then,” she said, “if I may return us to the _actual_ emergency at hand ... “

* * *

 

Afterward, they converged on plans to track down their memory-altering suspect and a careful schedule of memory adjustments on everyone Henry Shaw had talked to since the Obliviation Event before a recess was called.

Graves would ordinarily have taken the chance to reconnect with the district chiefs and familiarize himself with new faces, but instead strode purposefully toward the exit as if he had other pressing business. On the way, he caught a single glimpse of Turner amidst a knot of senior field agents ... and casually let his gaze slide past when her head turned, pretending he had not seen her as he stepped out of the room.

It was a daring gambit that the Auror had made; one that Graves wasn’t sure he appreciated, no matter that the outcome had been in his favor. If Weiss-Capeton had agreed to another inquiry and the findings simply reaffirmed those of the first, Graves might have had enough of an excuse to demote the district chief or shift him to another territory. The president may be obliged to swallow the mutinous actions of an upstart congressman as being a part of MACUSA’s system of checks and balances, but magical law and security had little room for doubts in the chain of command.

But, if Weiss-Capeton had agreed to it and a second inquiry concluded that there was even reasonable doubt ... Graves could very well have been the one dismissed instead. And Weiss-Capeton would have had an unquestionable advantage in running his candidacy again.

It had all depended on how secure the district chief had felt in pressing his luck ... and to Graves’ ever-deepening consternation, he realized he actually didn’t know what a second inquiry might conclude. Sympathy had been on his side during the first round of examination, along with a general desire to simply move past the whole ugly mess of Grindelwald and the obscurus.

But if there was a re-examination? In the wake of the no-maj press leaks, the international scrutiny, and now Weiss-Capeton apparently ready to take a much more proactive role in a bid for the directorship - ?

Graves simply stopped in the corridor and covered his eyes with one hand, thoughts so mired that, for a moment, even his body felt impossible to move.

“You should keep an eye on Turner.”

Graves startled and then tried to cover it with a scrape of his hand through his hair. “I am,” he assured, turning on a heel. “She might make a good successor one day.”

“Forget ‘one day’. She might make a try to succeed you right now, if you don’t watch your back.”

Graves smiled thinly. “If so, she would just be one more contender, as today has shown. As grateful as I always am for the advice your healthy levels of paranoia generate, Mons, but I’m sure you had other motives for hunting me down ... ?”

While the attrition rate on Auror numbers had improved dramatically since the time of the Original Twelve, Silas Mons was still somewhat more the exception than the rule. More white-haired than grizzled now, it had only been three years ago and a two week convalescence after a bad field op that the Auror had finally been convinced to take a desk job. “So what’s this I hear about you benching Penny for the foreseeable future?”

Which was also just about the time that he had taken Penelope Wong under his wing as a burgeoning protege, if Graves recalled correctly. “You didn’t ‘hear’ anything. I’m certain the memo was quite clear, seeing as how I had written and sent it to you myself,” Graves sighed.

“And I read it and it was clear as horseshit.” Half a dozen years ago, Mons had delighted in verbally challenging every thought and decision that had crossed the mind of a then newly-minted head of the DMLE, Percival Graves. The last three years behind a desk had apparently mellowed him not at all. “Penny’s as professional as they come. What do you mean that she let personal matters interfere with her professional work and that she’s unfit for duty?”

“I meant that she ‘let personal matters interfere with her professional work and that she’s unfit for duty’,” Graves recited, patience already worn thin. “And it couldn't have happened at a worse time for MACUSA.”

“Bully for MACUSA, what about - “

“And may I note,” Graves cut in, rounding on the man, “I might say the same of you, allowing your judgment as her immediate superior to be unduly influenced by sentiment.”

Graves may have had a good four inches on the man, but Mons had forty-two years of hard-earned experience in the field to brace his spine as he spat, “If you’ve got a problem with how I do things then you can make it official and serve me a notice.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Graves snapped. “Did you know that Miss Wong has trouble even bringing herself to Obliviate a complete stranger?”

The hard stance wavered as Mons blinked. “What?”

Graves exhaled sharply, belatedly looked around to see who else might be nearby, and motioned with a jerk of his head for the man to follow as he cast a charm to prevent casual eavesdropping while they walked. “Bernie Shaw’s testimony exonerates her from fault in the Henry Shaw fiasco. But follow it with her failure in another field assignment so soon after, and that won’t matter, we’ll all be collectively raked over the coals if it gets out. How long have you known about this matter concerning her grandmother?”

Though Mons was still giving him the side-eye, it was now a fair guess whether it was just a default expression or residual belligerence. “For the better part of the year. She seemed to be managing it though. She took some approved time off to get a handle on things, but I had nothing to complain about her performance when she was on the job; you’d have heard about it if I did.”

“Well, you’re hearing about it from me now,” Graves snapped. “Go have a talk with her if you need to, and get your head back on straight. We can’t afford to have any more slip-ups like this.”

Mons’ expression twisted, sullen and resentful. “Yes, Sir,” he said stiffly.

Graves gritted his teeth at the tone, took a split second to ponder whether he really had the energy to address it versus whether he could afford yet more bad blood within the department, before taking a hold of the man’s elbow and tugging him into an alcove. “Look,” he said lowly, “I signed off on those reports and promotions. I trusted your judgment and I liked what I saw. She’s talented, no doubt about it - but if we’re going to salvage any of that, it’s my professional opinion that she needs to take a break and we should all reassess how things should proceed from here. Tell me there’s something you would do differently.”

The man’s cheek twitched, but he had the grace to give Graves’ implicit question due consideration before he answered, just as stiffly, “No, Sir.”

Graves sighed, just about resigning himself to the fact that this may be the best result he could hope for, before a new thought occurred to him and he offered after a pause for consideration, “I could send someone around to see what the home situation is. There’s nothing we can do medically, but perhaps some of the ... stress can be relieved with an extra house elf or caretaker. There aren’t any provisions for it officially in the books, but, perhaps an unofficial fund ... ”

“We take care of our own,” Mons finished staunchly, beginning to look much less dour. “Understood, Sir.”

Graves nodded, feeling the tension bleed from his own shoulders. “Good. You can let Wong know that someone will be dropping by soon, then. After I have an assessment, perhaps you could help to organize something that will make a more material difference to her.”

“Yes, Sir.” This time, the acknowledgment was much more enthusiastic, and Graves exhaled in relief at finally being able to defuse at least one situation. Then Mons added with a clap of a hand to his shoulder, “By the way, welcome back. I’d thought you were a little too accommodating of late, but thought maybe you were just finally seeing sense. Even I didn’t think it was ‘cause a dark wizard was walking ‘round in your skin.”

Graves blinked, opened his mouth ... and then paused, finding himself oddly at a loss for words.

Other than Seraphina, no one else he knew personally seemed willing to address the recent embarrassments directly to his face. Even Tina had, in spite of her awkwardly well-meaning overtures of friendship, simply let the past remain in the past ... and anyone else he might have wished to talk to about it was gone or didn’t remember their past ties.

Up till now, he had thought he was grateful; trying to field overt sympathy from people who only half knew him seemed just another form of torture after an already trying experience. But there was something to Mons’ matter-of-fact declaration that forced Graves to clear his throat before he could finally manage a response. “Excellent,” he quipped belatedly. “If the most distinguishing feature identifying me from a dark wizard is my willingness to engage in disputes, then everyone should be able to rest easy over the next few months.”

Mons gave a snorting laugh. “He was probably just trying to keep a low profile while he snuck around, but you can tell how honest a man is by how willing he is to stand his ground and shout you down. He might be flat out wrong,” he said with a pointed look at Graves, “but at least he’s honest.”

Graves rolled his eyes. “And there is no one else more willing than you to keep me honest, is there, Mons?”

The man bared his teeth in a grin that had probably been witnessed by more criminals just before their arrest than friends, but Graves nevertheless found himself smiling back, just as sharply.

* * *

 

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur. After the morning’s excitement, Graves found it difficult to focus, even with the help of two cups’ worth of caffeine. Struggling not to appear as if he was giving Weiss-Capeton’s antics undue significance, the low grade headache that constantly dogged him these days flared to a continuous throb behind his eyes as he tried to balance acknowledging and ignoring the district chief in equal amounts.

It didn’t help his attention span that there was little new information to be gleaned from the rest of the afternoon session. Of the two extant cases that spanned multiple states, one was in the process of being wrapped up - solved by a joint team between Virginia and DC - while the other had made little progress.

“The smuggling has been real scarce lately.” Tyler Wyndham, prematurely balding beneath his fedora and with a long face that gave him a permanent air of moroseness, spread his hands helplessly. “I doubt they’ve closed up shop, but it’s like the smugglers’ve all taken off on vacation.”

Back in June, what had been formally an immigration case but was now informally a ‘body smuggling’ operation had first presented itself in the number of unregistered wands being reported. Most were not involved in any major crime, but as a matter of course, even citations required a check ... and across the eastern seaboard, the statistics of unregistered wands had nearly doubled.

That in and of itself was not immediately worthy of note. International visitors, such as the redoubtable Newton Scamander, often didn’t realize they needed to register, or else tried to dodge the hassle and trusted that they would not be caught during a limited stay.

But the rise in unregistered wands didn’t belong to visitors; they belonged to immigrants. The owners were in America to stay, and while MACUSA had never placed restrictions on immigration, they did have strict policies on registering upon entry into the country. Some talk had circulated Congress in the months when Grindelwald had been running amok in Europe about setting up MACUSA customs points alongside no-maj ones, making it mandatory to register on the spot rather than give the current policy’s 24-hour grace period. But the proposals had been bogged down in debates and bureaucracy, until Grindelwald was already in America and their initial purpose had become a moot point.

“We thought about bringing up checkpoints at the docks again,” Wyndham admitted, “but I don’t know how much good they’ll do. Only some folks cross the Atlantic on the no-maj ocean liners - what with no-maj anti-immigration laws cracking down on those of an obvious ethnicity, they’ve had to get creative with disguises and charms. For sure they’re getting help - it’s not everyone that can get a hold of that much polyjuice or run the spells to stow away on a week-long trip, especially if they’ve got family with them.

“The rest ... “ He shrugged one shoulder, grimacing. “We think they’re coming the roundabout way, on smaller boats. Stopping just before the Rum Line essentially, and Apparating to land from there.”

“So they have to dodge no-maj customs,” someone called out, “but once they’re here, what’s keeping them from registering then? MACUSA’s got no problems with them being here.”

Wyndham’s mouth crooked wryly. “One assumes something illegal, though we got excuses ranging from a simple ‘I forgot’ or ‘I thought it was already registered’ to a wild tale involving a horse, an umbrella, and a dog in a dress. It took us a few months at least before we even realized a consistent third party was involved.

“Otherwise, everyone’s been meek as a mouse ‘bout paying the fines and letting their wands be registered after the fact. The subjects we’ve questioned didn’t have a lot of information to give; whoever smuggled them in made sure to erase their traces,” he nodded toward Shaw, “though maybe this new technique can help us pry a little more out of what little we’ve got. But it’s a lot of effort someone’s going through to bring them here, and we haven’t figured out yet what they’ve been doing besides moving a whole bunch of bodies over and then letting ‘em carry on.”

“And, I wager, no one here needs help figuring out why it might be a bad idea to have a large number of unknowns blending invisibly into the general population,” Graves stepped in, deciding that he better wrap up the day before they all thought themselves further into a rut. “While the problem of the memory meddler is our absolute top priority, the mass unregistered immigration is also of high concern. Considering the number of possible entry points for the migrants, it should be relevant to everyone here.

“I’ve asked Wyndham to make copies of the salient files; everyone please take one before you leave and review them tonight. Tomorrow, I want us to put concrete plans in place for making progress on both cases by the end of the day. It would make a nice holiday present to Congress if we can wrap up one or both by the year’s end.”

“Think they deserve lumps of coal, not presents,” someone grouched loud enough that there was a smattering of snickers as people stood and stretched.

There was a collective air of relief as the solemn, tense mood of the past few hours lifted, even if homework had been assigned for the evening. Conversation was more relaxed, several groups exchanging dinner plans while people began filing out the door at an unhurried pace.

Graves turned to the four Aurors he had brought with him. “Thank you for your time, and good work. Rossi, Shaw, I would like to see you at my office before the day starts tomorrow. Give it about ten minutes, it shouldn’t take long.” As the two nodded and began to peel off, Graves motioned for Goldstein to stay while he finally met Turner’s gaze directly for the first time since her earlier performance. “I want to see you thirty minutes beforehand.”

She drew herself up. “Sir, if this is about earlier, I - “

“Thirty minutes beforehand,” Graves repeated flatly, unblinking.

Mouth tightening until her full lips were but a thin line, she finally gave a curt nod. “Will that be all, Sir?” she said stiffly.

“I will see you tomorrow,” Graves confirmed, waiting until the woman had marched out of earshot before finally turning to the lone woman standing pensively to the side.

“Sir ... she was just trying to help,” Goldstein ventured.

Graves arched a brow. “Like you were ‘just trying to help’ when you involved a no-maj in an investigation you were explicitly told to drop by no less than the president?” When Goldstein bit her lip, visibly struggling to withhold several reflexive responses, he finally took pity and granted her a weary curl of his mouth. “For which I, personally, am very grateful for. But just as you’re starting to learn discretion, Turner needs some tempering too.

“But,” he held up a hand to forestall any other responses, “no need to worry so much about Turner’s delicate sensibilities; some of what I have to tell her and the others tomorrow will soon be official news. I need you, though, to help me on something of a personal project.”

Now that the press of bodies leaving the room had thinned, he drew her toward the exit as he explained the situation with Penelope Wong. Predictably, Goldstein jumped on the chance to help, and they were barely out into the main corridor before she was off like a shot, promising that she had some useful contacts in mind and that she would be in touch with Wong soon.

Graves was honestly a little piqued that she had taken to her task so quickly; he had had ulterior motives to use her as a shield against anyone seeking him out as they left the lecture hall. As he watched her dark bob weave expertly through the thinning stream of pedestrians, though, he shook himself and took a deep breath, bracing his shoulders back.  “When did you become so afraid of walking through your own damned department,” he remonstrated himself beneath his breath, stretching his steps into a bolder stride.

And, predictably, someone called out to him while he rounded the very first corner.

Unpredictably, that someone had also spoken with a very un-American accent.

It was only years of experience that allowed Graves to dig the man’s name out from the depths of memory. “Jonathon Scapplesworth?” he greeted with a raised brow as he made his way over.

The British Auror pushed away from the wall he had been leaning against, holding out a hand with an almost abashed grin. “Yes, Sir. I hope you don’t mind the ambush; I was told that you were going to be in a meeting all day, and the only way to catch you was maybe if I waited here.”

Hazel-eyed and dark haired, Scamander’s second had the sort of clean, nondescript features and easy manner of a veteran field agent; someone who excelled at disappearing into any population and needed little help from magic to become as forgettable as he wanted to be. “You could have left a note at my office,” Graves clasped the hand firmly, “I always read all my messages before I leave for the day.”

The man shrugged, glancing casually to either side - apparently tracking how many people were still commuting past as he said, “I’m afraid I have something of a personal request, and didn’t really want to make an official bother of it.”

“Well, this certainly seems to be the day for such things,” Graves noted dryly, shaking his head at Scappleworth’s look of confusion as he motioned for the man to follow him. “Apologies, a personal joke. If you’d rather not walk this back to my office, will an isolated corner do?”

“That would be fine. My request is fairly straightforward. In theory.”

Graves raised his brows, but waited until he had led them to a quiet gallery edging a small, oft-abandoned atrium, and waved the same charm against eavesdropping he had used with Mons into place before prompting, “‘In theory’?”

But Scapplesworth’s eyes had followed his motion with interest, and he noted, “You’ve a dab hand with wandless magic.”

“Most Ilvermorny graduates do to some degree or another,” Graves brushed off. Never mind that he has been getting more practice in than usual as of late. “We’re not allowed to keep our wands when off school grounds until our majority. Every first, second, and probably many a third year student will inevitably spend their summer and winter breaks figuring out every scrap of magic they can perform without the help of their wand ... practice that those who decide to enter the Auror program usually find especially useful.”

“I would imagine so,” Scapplesworth noted with a wry tip of his head, before sobering. “Well, without further ado, then - I wish to track down an old friend here in the States.” And then, before Graves could more than knit his brows in confusion at the innocuousness of the request, he added, “She’s a muggle. Or, as you call them here, a no-maj.”

Graves automatically wiped his expression into blankness. “Mr. Scapplesworth ... Rappaport’s Law - “

“I know,” he held up a hand, wincing, “but hear me out. I met her during the war ... she was a nurse. She’s a very dear friend, and I hadn’t kept up with her like I had wanted to. I just want to know how she’s doing ... if she’s well.”

It was a moment before Graves could gather his thoughts. “To be honest,” he said slowly, “I’m not sure what you’re asking for. Resources to find her? My blessing for tracking down a no-maj? I can’t give you either.”

Scapplesworth made a frustrated motion. “I understand, I only ... I don’t need to talk to her, just - it would mean a lot to me, to know that she’s in a good place now.”

“And if she isn’t?” Graves pressed mercilessly. “Would you not feel compelled to interfere directly? To help her?”

The man’s face twisted as he looked away, hands clenching once by his side.

Graves sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose against the building pressure behind it. “She was a nurse. You were under her care, weren’t you?”

A scuff of a shoe, and he admitted, “I was too close to a bomb, too distracted to shield completely in time. I managed to deflect enough to keep from dying right away, but I was found by muggles and taken to a muggle hospital. She was the one who took care of me while I recovered.”

“And does she know you’re a wizard?”

“Yes.” His shoulders hunched. “It was fine, in Europe.”

“But you’re in America, now,” Graves stated unnecessarily. Exhaling sharply, he rubbed at his eyes. “Tell me what you would do if it’s bad news.”

“Write to her?” the Brit spread his hands sardonically. “I don’t know - if she’s about to be murdered, then I might be inclined to break some laws.” He grimaced at the glare Graves sends him, and held his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry - no, you’re right. What if I come to you? Discuss the options - surely there’s some way for me to make a difference without, how does it go, too much ‘undue interaction with no-majs beyond what’s absolutely necessary for daily life?”

“You are asking me, the head of magical law enforcement, to parse magical law for your sake?”

“I am asking you,” Scapplesworth said with the first hints of desperation, “to help me find peace, that someone who had helped me through one of the darkest moments of my life is living the life she deserves.”

Something didn’t sit well, like a sore tooth, and Graves couldn’t help prodding at it, trying to figure out what was bothering his subconscious. “And is there reason to believe that it might be otherwise?”

The Brit sighed, scraping a hand through his hair, “Right. There were several reasons why she volunteered to leave America as a nurse. One of them in particular ... well, it should have been resolved by the time she returned. But I would like to make sure that everything is well for her now.”

Graves stared at him long and hard, but Scapplesworth didn’t waver beneath the attention. In fact, the man’s return stare was just a shade too direct. “You didn’t really need to come to me, though, if that was all you wanted,” Graves noted blandly.

“I didn’t really need to come to you,” he admitted readily, then continued with sheepishness creeping into his tone, “but ... we fell out of touch a while ago. And I need resources to find her. And your blessing to track her down.”

Graves snorted in spite of himself, which only encouraged a self-deprecating grin on the Brit’s part until Graves gave up with a sigh. “As a _favor_ ,” he said, with an emphasis that Scapplesworth understood if his sharp and enthusiastic nod was any indication, “I will get someone to look into her whereabouts. I will specify that this should not take up undue time considering what else we have on our plates right now. But on the chance that we can track her down in a timely fashion with little fuss ... I will let you know how things appear to be for her.”

Scapplesworth sighed gustily in relief. “Thank you,” he said, solemn and formal as he clasped Graves’ hand between both of his. “Her name is Grace Henley, and her hometown was Springfield, Massachusetts. I’ll make sure Scamander knows what you’re doing for me.”

“As long as it doesn’t go beyond him,” Graves noted wryly. “I’m still within legal bounds, but I hardly wish to advertise this.”

“Of course,” the Brit assured quickly. “Thank you again, Sir; I won’t keep you any longer, then. Good evening.”

Graves returned the farewell absently. As he watched the man depart, he wondered if he had not just grasped the tail of a full-grown wampus thinking it a kitten; all for the nebulous benefit of having at least one of the British contingent on his side.

* * *

 

When Graves finally made it back to his office, there was yet another memo transcribed on behalf of Gellert Grindelwald. It was, in content, identical to the two that had come before, but for the exception of a single addition at the end:

_You won’t be able to ignore me forever._

This time, Graves’ wandless _Incendio_ sent the entire contents of his wastebasket up in a ball of flame that left a scorch mark on the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The full quote for the chapter title is "If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise". Also, fun trivia moment, I got the name Scapplesworth when I had a particularly brain-dead moment for names, and Winzler suggested I name him after the program (Scapple) that I sometimes use to lay out the plots for my writings. XD
> 
> The 3-mile offshore limit of US jurisdiction became known as the "rum line" as large boats would pull up just outside of it, and sell their wares to "contact boats" - local fishermen and small boat captains. The line of waiting vessels then became known as "Rum Row". (This is what led to an act of congress in 1924 to extend the limit to 12 miles, making it more difficult for small vessels to make it out there.)
> 
> One of the pioneers of forensic science, the Frenchman Edmond Locard, set up the first police laboratory in Lyon around 1910.
> 
> The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. In all of its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity. It wasn't until 1952 that congress revised the act.

**Author's Note:**

> * "The Best Things in Life Are Free" originally came from a song released in 1927** of the same name, becoming a modern English proverb.
> 
> ** Which is the year after the events of Fantastic Beasts, but the world has friggin' magic in it, so I'm not too torn up about a little chronological inconsistency.
> 
> Warning: My only knowledge of the original Potterverse comes from years of reading fanfiction and watching 2 of the Potter movies. I haven't even finished watching Fantastic Beasts yet (because of a gun-threat in the next theater over - story for another time) though I've read what I could of the ending. I hadn't ever seriously entertained the thought of writing in this fandom at all until I happened to take a really good look at a picture of Percival Graves' coat and suit on Google one day and whoops suddenly 20 minutes flew by. So, you have Percival Graves' sleek sartorial style to thank for this self-indulgent walkabout into the American-Potter countryside.


End file.
